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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 


























































































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3SZZ.<Jt- 

CROSS PURPOSES. 

\ 


A CHRISTMAS EXPERIENCE IN 
SEVEN STAGES. 





Author of “ Four Years in Rebel Capitals," “ Pluck, a 
Comedy,’ t cc. etc. 


ILLUSTRATED BY W. B. MYERS. 



PHILADELPHIA 
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 

1871. 

u 


> 2.3 
'^>37 7 


Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by 
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., 

In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 


Lippincott’s Press, 

PHILADELPHIA. 






CONTENTS 


PAGE 

PROLOGUE 5 

I. 

Love’s Young Dream 9 

II 

Over the Snow 25 

III. 

The Green-Eyed Monster. 43 

IV. 

Odd Confidences 60 

V. 

In the Depths 80 

VI. 

The Dark Hour before Day 92 

VII. 

Victory ! 101 

EPILOGUE 1 16 

3 




Cross Purposes. 


PROLOGUE. 

HRISTMAS night of 1869. 

Without, the wind howls dismally 
round the gables of the old homestead. 
Ever and anon it rises into a wild shriek that 
makes the sturdy timbers of “ Shadynook” trem- 
ble as if in fear, and sends the sashes rattling 
against each other like the teeth of a wanderer 
belated in the blast. Light snow-flakes flutter 
upon and whisper softly against the broad 
panes, clinging to them as if to urge messages 
of pity for storm and stress without ; then dis- 
solving, as if in tears, and dropping helplessly 
away, as a rougher voice of the wind rises over 
them and drowns their soft accents in the sharp 
rattle of icicles borne on its breath. 

1 * 



5 




6 


Cross Pur poses. 


Within, mellow wax-light from a dozen old- 
time sconces floods, soft and warm, the antique 
furniture, heavy curtains and festoons of glossy 
green, through which rich red berries gleam. 
Far back in the capacious hearth roars and 
splutters a veritable Yule-log, sending forked 
tongues of lambent flame up the broad chim- 
ney, with message of defiance from the Fire 
King to the Storm Fiend shrieking in baffled 
wrath around its tall tops. 

The genial glow creeps into the farthest 
recess of the long parlor, where a gentle- 
looking blonde sits at the quaint-carved piano, 
and with delicately emphasized touch makes 
it speak feelingly the sweet thoughts of the 
“ Moonlight Sonata.” Over the piano court- 
eously bends a tall, bearded man, while near by 
a boy of ten turns over the leaves of an album, 
occasionally lifting a pair of eyes wonderfully 
bright and roguish, yet wistful in the moist 
depth of their blackness. 

On a sofa by the chimney sits a very prim 
and very aged lady, every pucker in her black 
satin dress and in her sallow face, every ruffle 


Prologue . 


7 


on her high, starched cap, speaking the one 
word, “ Unmated !” But the warmth of Christ- 
mas-tide seems to thaw even her ice, and she 
melts into a grim smile at some joke a portly 
and dignified gentleman whispers into the 
trumpet she holds to her ear. And that gen- 
tleman has the contentment only brought by an 
honest heart, a good digestion and a Christmas 
dinner ! Before the fire, with outstretched feet, 
and sitting all over a small rocking-chair, is a 
ruddy, jolly and most contented-seeming speci- 
men of the “ bold soldier boy,” the double 
bars upon his shoulder-straps denoting ten 
years of meritorious pay-drawing that made 
him captain in the staff. 

This unworthy narrator stands with his back 
to the fire listening to the low tones of a very 
sweet, rich voice. That voice has in it soft 
echoes of the long ago ; and the sloe-black eyes 
raised to mine dance in contagious merriment 
as it frames the words : 

“ Eleven ^ears to-night !” 

The sonata ceases ; the handsome group from 
the piano join us, and the little boy, stealing his 


8 


Cross Purposes. 


hand into that of my interlocutor, raises to hers 
the pair of eyes that are her own in miniature. 

“ Mamma,” he says, “ can I hear a Christmas 
story before Netta takes me to bed ?” 

She looks at me ; there is a world of elo- 
quence in the silent inquiry of those glorious 
eyes, but the rich voice only murmurs, as they 
seek the carpet, 

“ Tou can tell him one?” 

A flood of recollection sweeps over my mind 
— a flood of color over my cheek — at the em- 
phasis upon the pronoun. I am sure I blush ; 
I believe I sigh. Stepping to the table, I cover 
my confusion and my vest with a ladle of egg- 
nogg as I mutter to myself, “ Eleven years to- 
night !” Then I resume my stand with my 
back to the fire, and say cheerily : 

“Story have I none, Blythe, but I will give 
you a Christmas experience.” 

And I do it. 



I. 

LOVE'S YOUNG BEE AM. 

ME along, old boy ! I’ve fixed it at 
ast.” 

Thus cried Lieutenant Tom Jones, U. 
S. A., bounding into my room in his usual hop- 
skip-and-jump style, and causing thereby a deep 
gash in both the chins reflected in the cracked 
shaving-glass of my bachelor lodgings. 

“ I rather think you have,” I responded, half- 
savagely, as I mopped my bleeding feature with 
a piece of blotting-paper — “ I rather think you 
have ; but what in the world have you fixed, 
besides my chin ?” 

“ Oh, bother your bleeding ! Just listen : I’ve 
borrowed the major’s gray and the surgeon’s 
‘Jalap,’ done Uncle Bob out of his double 
sleigh, and we’ll drive over to Shadynook and 




IO 


Cross Purposes. 


spend Christmas. Hurrah !” And Lieutenant 
Tom Jones, U. S. Boomerangs, spun round my 
room as if he had just been promoted to the 
first corps of the Black Crook. I looked at 
him until he regained a pose on the back of my 
arm-chair, with his feet on the cushion. Then 
I said gravely — the tone was meant to convey 
the most crushing sarcasm — 

u Slicer’s Jalap and the major’s gray?” 

“ Certainly — why not?” 

“Why not? Because, firstly, the gray never 
was in traces in his life ; secondly, because the 
sorrel never would go in double harness, you 
know.” 

“ Yes, I know. But, then, they’re both old 
enough to begin ; so come, old fellow, pack 
your traps. I’ll give the ponies a whirl down 
the road to keep ’em quiet and use ’em to the 
bells. Hurry ; I’ll be back before you say 
‘Jack Robinson !’ ” 

I stared at my friend to see if he was really 
in earnest before I replied : 

“ Tom Jones, do I look like a lunatic? Have 
you any reason to justify believing me a fit sub- 


Love's Young Dream. 


ii 

ject for the padded room ? My dear boy,” I 
added, gently, “ my neck is far too valuable to 
my country to risk breaking it for the sake of 
breaking old Sheer’s sorrel and your uncle’s 
sleigh.” 

“ Why, they’re at the door now — -just look at 
’em,” responded the lieutenant, walking to the 
window. “ They’re as quiet as a pair of lambs.. 
The sorrel has only one leg over the pole, and 
the sergeant and my orderly can hold the gray’s 
head nearly still ! Come ! throw some things 
into a valise and be ready by the time I get 
back.” 

I threw myself on the sofa and stretched out 
my comfortable slippers to the sea-coal fire by 
way of reply. 

“Can’t do it, Tom. I’m too valuable a 
member of society to think of suicide at 
present.” 

“Nonsense! We’ll have no end of a jolly 
time at Belton’s — raise the neighborhood — 
skate on the pond — make floods of eggnogg — 
shock the old ’un — and have a glorious German 
to wind up.” 


12 


Cross Purposes. 


I shook my head. 

“Can’t do it, T. Jones. Even did I want to 
ruin my life-insurance people, I’ve engagements 
at home I cannot break and I looked very 
important as I dwelt on this announcement. 
“You see I lead the choir for their Christmas 
practice to-night ; I’ve been pledged for a month 
for my Xmas dinner at the mayor’s ; and I — 
ahem — I skate Miss Bettie on the pond this 
after—” 

“ Oh what a head I have !” Tom broke in. 
“ Didn’t I mention that? Uncle Bob says Bet’s 
to go with us, and she says you must be sure 
to come. And mind, you are to tell him the 
horses are dog quiet. Bet swears he’d never 
believe me.” 

Miss Bettie was going! 

Before that young lieutenant had half finished 
his sentence, I was at the window gazing at 
those horses with an interest no quadrupeds 
ever possessed for me before. The sorrel had 
fallen in his effort to get his leg back over the 
pole, the grizzly old sergeant was sitting com- 
posedly on Ills head, blowing huge clouds from 


13 


Love’s Toung Dream . 

his pipe, while the orderly unouckled the traces. 
The gray amused himself meanwhile by snap- 
ping viciously at the boy who held him, and 
with every snap he made a vain lunge with his 
heels at the orderly’s fatigue cap, the latter 
dodging beautifully as ever did a practiced 
sparrer before a big bruiser. The view was 
not encouraging. They certainly were hardly 
the pair to risk a young lady’s — or my own — 
neck with, even though Tom was famous 
throughout his corps as a perfect Rarey. 

“ By George !” I half soliloquized ; “ I don’t 
think she’d be safe behind those devils.” 

“Bosh! With me driving? Only the bells 
tease them a little for the moment. One turn 
dow r n the road, and I’ll bring them back like a 
pair of sheep.” 

“ But I hardly think — ” 

“ And I certainly know. Come ! Bet’s crazy 
to go, and says she depends on you to persuade 
Uncle Bob the horses are quiet.” 

“Miss Bettie does?” I hesitated. There was 
a lump in my throat and a singing in my ears ; 
I was deucedly afraid of the mad beasts myself ; 

2 


14 Cross Purposes . * 

but then she wanted to go, so I added : “ Well, 
perhaps, after all, they may be a little quieter 
soon. And, Tom, you do — ah — really think 
them safe?” 

“ Certainly I do, and Bet does too. She’s 
not a bit afraid.” That decided me. 

“ Tom Jones” — I spoke with deep solemnity. 
I knew that moment what they felt who saw 
the tumbril ready to bear them to the hungry 
knife of the First Revolution — “ Tom Jones, I 
will go, of course. But, Tom, pray do not use 
that horrid abbreviation of your cousin’s name. 
There are some subjects too sacred for the pro- 
fanation of slangy condensation ; and your 
cousin’s name is — ” 

“Bully! You’ll go, then?” interrupted the 
irrepressible Boomerang. “ I’ll wheel ’em 
round the block and bring ’em in cool, you — 
Bel.” 

He bounded down the stairs, sprang into the 
sleigh, seized the reins, and, as the men jumped 
from the horses’ heads, was off with a flurry of 
snow and a hurrah from the crowd. 

I am not a dab at the classics, so I will not 


Loie's Young Dream. 15 

say how, having plunged like Curtius into this 
gaping sleigh-ride, I now sat like Marius, amid 
the ruins of my wardrobe. But I did tumble 
all its contents into the middle of the floor and 
then sat among them, hopeless of cramming 
into my small valise half enough for this all- 
important Xmas visit. But she wanted to go ! 
I was to risk my neck for her sake — by her 
side. Delicious thought ! So just as the bells 
again jingled at the door, I jumped upon 
my distended portmanteau, sprung the lock, 
and answered Tom with a yell as wild as his 
own. 

Now, perhaps I should explain that Tom 
Jones and I had always been chums. Residents 
of the same village and children of intimate 
friends, we had thumbed the same algebra, 
robbed the same orchards and been flogged by 
the same pedagogue. In fact, we had never 
been two weeks apart until his appointment to 
West Point, five years before, had separated us. 
Tom’s persevering industry in running bounds 
to “ Cozzens,” and his assiduous course of 
u Benny Havens,” had scarcely been thor- 


1 6 


Cross Purposes. 


oughly rewarded ; for his graduation — third in 
his class counting from the bottom — made him 
a brevet second lieutenant in U. S. Boomerangs. 
It had found me a dignified but patient lawyer 
in the incipient metropolis of Piketon. Happy 
chance had thrown Tom at the arsenal nearby, 
and had introduced his chosen friend to the 
family circle of his Uncle Blythe. 

There I soon became ami de maison. Mayor 
Blythe — he was the revered chief magistrate of 
Piketon — was a brother lawyer, and a man of 
high social and literary renown. He had a 
capitally chosen library, a warm heart, a cele- 
brated cook and a rare assortment of such 
wines ! And then — hem ! — like Jephthah of old, 
he had “ one fair daughter and no more.” 

But such a daughter ! 

Bettie Blythe was just turned of nineteen, 
and the most perfect mould of female form 
divine. Of medium height, just plump enough 
for perfection of rounded outline, and with the 
tiniest models of feet and hands that ever fell to 
the lot of woman, her face was still her chiefest 
charm. Not regularly beautiful, with scarce a 


Loves Young Dream. 17 

feature in it that would have been pronounced 
fine under critical analysis, there was yet an 
indescribable witchery in that face, or in the 
character reflected by it, that bound me hand 
and foot from the first week I knew her. Those 
rich, dark oval lines, with heavy bands of glossy 
hair, seemed to command, rather than ask, a 
second look. And who could look twice and 
forget ? 

“ There was a merry devil in her eye” — 

large, languid and black as sloe — that drew a 
timid man’s heart right up into his throat and 
kept it kicking there with forty-horse power. 
And then the face was but an index of the 
sprightly but sound and well-stored mind her 
father had sedulously cultivated during a long 
widowerhood. And the steady, tender gleam 
that sometimes replaced the mischievous twin- 
kle in those eyes could only have been drawn 
from the well-spring of a pure heart. 

With the first month of our acquaintance, I 
began to believe I cared for Bettie Blythe ; 
with the second, I believed I loved her ; and 
2 * B 


1 8 Cross Purposes. 

with the third, I knew it for a certainty. On 
the fourth month I had told her I adored her 
wildly ; and for three subsequent ones had 
come, again and again, to the very threshold of 
a repetition. Gentle and womanly, she had at 
first told me gravely — the rest of the face de- 
mure, while the eyes danced a very witches’ 
dance to the tune of suppressed merriment — 
that, though we were very excellent friends, we 
were still almost strangers. I could only ac- 
knowledge the truth of what she said, so I 
prayed for forgiveness and for hope. She gave 
the pardon, the pardon gave the hope, and I 
wandered on in a fool’s paradise. But though 
we became better and better friends, though 
she let me meander unchecked through the 
most extensive fields of rhapsody and lay the 
tallest flowers of sentiment at her feet, yet the 
first outright word I spoke carried up the taper 
forefinger in arch warning, and the ripe lips 
formed the one word, “ Remember !” 

I could not believe Bettie Blythe was flirting 
with me. There was something too genuine, 
too womanly, about her whole being for that. 


Love's Young Dream. 19 

She could never stoop, I said to myself for 
comfort, to a little triumph in the misery of the 
heart she knew to be hers in all honesty and 
ardor. No ! Either she was trying to make a 
real “ friend” of me, or — delicious idea ! — she 
was beginning to love me without admitting it 
to herself. I was willing to take the chances 
of the first so long as I saw a possibility of the 
second. And besides, either gave me so much 
of her delightful society. 

Though no spoken word ever passed between 
us on the subject, there was yet that “ mute 
converse of kindred souls,” and Tom Jones 
apparently sympathized with me most com- 
pletely. Bettie and he were fast friends, and 
Mayor Blythe permitted her to go anywhere 
under protection of “ Cousin Tom,” in whom 
he placed unbounded confidence. During the 
burning days of that August, many a charming 
pic-nic had we in the grand old woods about 
Piketon ; in the mellow evenings of autumn 
many a never-to-be-forgotten sail on the little 
mirror of a lake. And what teas were those 
on the old verandah, with the soft breeze sigh- 


20 


Cross Purposes. 


ing through the vines in sympathy with the 
beatings of my heart, and the light just unde- 
cided enough for me to imagine any expression 
in her face that best suited my ardent longings ! 
Later, when the early snows began to fall, how 
merry were those sleigh-rides in the mayor’s 
sober family sleigh, drawn by the sober family 
horse, Tom always acting Jehu ! And when 
the icier breath of winter blew over the little 
lake, sheeting it with .a surface glossy smooth, 
I had tenderly strapped the tiny skate-thong 
round that ravishingly-turned ankle — had held 
the taper fingers in mine as we glided in swift 
circles over its cold bosom. As I have said, 
Tom was always with us on these jaunts ; but 
we were a partie carree and mindful of the 
philosophy as to what constitutes “company” 
and what “ a crowd.” 

Anna Belton was ever Tom’s companion. A 
quiet, fair-haired, sensitive mouse of a blonde, 
she was the direct antipode in all things of her 
sworn ally, Bettie, under whose fostering pro- 
tection she would nestle confidingly as though 
no harm could reach her there. She was sole 


Love's Young Dream. 21 

heiress, and sole companion at her splendid 
residence, “ Shadynook,” of a very deaf but 
Argus-eyed grand-aunt. Unmated herself for 
the full allotment of the human span, the senior 
Miss Belton had small confidence in the taste 
or honor of the sterner sex. She jealously 
watched the every movement of her niece, re- 
ligiously believing that each man who set his 
eye upon her fragile form used it but as a me- 
dium through which to cast unholy glances at 
the estate — some ten miles back of Piketon — 
whose exponent she was. But the home of the 
spinster had no great charms for her heiress 
unless brightened by the presence of her 
stronger friend and ally ; so, when Bettie could 
not be spared from her household gods, it was 
great comfort to quiet little Anna to sit under 
these also, and to stay there meekly so long as 
Bettie could alternately cajole or coerce the deaf 
spinster into permitting. But that ancient and 
unwinking Cerberus had carefully reconnoitred 
the surroundings of the mayoralty. She had 
long since concluded that I was the property of 
the lady of the house, and Tom, being only a 


22 


Cross Purposes. 


piece of live furniture, like the cat, was not to 
be counted. So little Anna’s last visit had been 
allowed to run into months. She could skate 
well, for all her fragility, and her taste and 
touch in music were both delicate but decided. 
So, after all, we made her useful, though I felt 
compunctious twinges -when I reflected how 
heavy on hand she must be to poor Tom ; for, 
besides all other reasons, it was an understood 
thing among us that Miss Belton was engaged. 
If not formally contracted to him, she was so 
far committed to a certain Mr. Goldwin as to 
make that consummation a mere matter of time. 
Not a very enticing person was Mr. Goldwin, 
sixty in years and money-grub in nature, but — 
as the senior Miss Belton was wont to say 
grimly — if not a brilliant man, he was at least 
a safe one. Twenty thousand a year was his 
allotment of this world’s goods, and the very 
soul of the spinster swelled within her when 
she reflected what that would do for “ Shady- 
nook.” 

Yielding in all things, the white mouse ap- 
peared to accept her fate in this with perfect 


Love's Young Dream. 23 

composure, but she shrunk with peculiar sensi- 
tiveness from any allusion to it by one of us. 
So, of course, none ever was made ; but I — 
and I was sure Tom as well — looked upon her 
as one of the least interesting of the victims to 
the Moloch of convenance. Hence, I fully ap- 
preciated the unselfish friendship that caused 
him to become a martyr to her stupidity, that I 
might be left tete-a-tete with his glorious cousin. 
One night when our bachelor pipes — or punch 
— had been stronger than usual, I said words to 
that effect. Tom’s rejoinder was characteristic. 
He thrust his tongue into his cheek, shut one 
eye very slowly, and nicking my glass with his, 
said, “ Here’s good luck, and bad ’cess to old 
Goldwin !” 

Verily, we need never leave our own circle 
for evidences of the mysteries of Nature’s com- 
plex mechanism, and what very odd errors we 
make in our estimate of them sometimes ! 

At length its heiress had been imperatively 
called back to “ Shadynook.” The unmated 
Argus would have her return for its Xmas 
dismalness, and when that spinster foot was 


2 4 


Cross Purposes. 


once put down, there it stayed. Exacting the 
promise of a speedy visit from Bettie, before 
Xmas if possible, and indulging in many mys- 
terious whispers and a perfect fusilade of 
kisses that set me on pins and needles of envy, 
the white-mousey one wept herself into her 
sleigh and faded out into the snowy avenue. 

Tom and I, as members of Bettie’s personal 
staff, had, of course, been included in the invi- 
tation to “ Shadynook,” but no time was de- 
cided in our council, and weeks rolled by with 
no definite plans about it. Happy weeks they 
were to me — full of sunshine, with only such 
flecks of shadow as made me enjoy the more. 
I basked in the smiles of the only woman I had 
ever really cared for, and, whether they were 
all for me or not, I was inanely happy, 

“ For there’s nothing half so sweet in life 
As Love’s young dream.” 







II. 

OVER THE SNOW. 

OLIDAY week had set in heavy and 
threatening. It had opened with a 
promise of snow, and had closed with 
its verification so fast and furious that by Christ- 
mas eve the whole country for miles around 
Piketon was wrapped in one spotless and un- 
broken mantle. The sleighing was perfect. 
Never in the memory of that much-quoted 
oldest authority in Piketon had it been so good. 
Our metropolis was alive with excitement — like 
the classic city of Stoke-Pogis, it was “ agitated 
to its centre.” The sudden furore for sleighing, 
added to the inevitable buzz of holiday prepa- 
ration, drove the usually quiet population into 
a fever of action. Every available sleigh, how- 
old, was rooted from its hiding-place ; 
3 25 


ever 




26 


Cross Purposes. 


horses accustomed only to the plough and the 
market-wagon pricked up their ears to the un- 
wonted hi-g ’ langl of excited drivers, and even 
crockery-crates and dry-goods boxes were put 
upon extemporized runners. 

All Piketon, swathed in furs or blankets, was 
bundled into something that would slide ; the 
road to the “ Bull’s Eye” — the sedate drovers’ 
tavern five miles out — was resonant with the 
merry music of their bells and the rollicking 
laughter of their occupants, while its primitive 
bar-room and sanded parlor were alike crowded 
from nipping morn to frosty eve. 

And how delicious is a sleigh-ride when all 
surroundings are propitious ! Who that has 
ever wintered in a snow country but has a store 
of ready recollections that spring up at the first 
sound of the bells? Be he a serious, well- 
rounded bachelor of fifty, their lively jar shakes 
the cumulate dust from still crevices of memory, 
and long-slumbering reminiscences, unrolling 
themselves like marmots in the spring, crawl 
out to bask in the sunlight of that long ago. 
Perhaps they find the gleam but a deceptive 


Over the Snow. 


27 


one now, and, after blinking at the present for 
a while, creep back again and curl themselves 
up for a longer nap. 

No acrid and hopeless spinster walking re- 
gretfully on the shadowy side of maidenhood 
but straightens her back, drops her shoulders 
and smoothes out her wrinkles, as the music 
of the bells plays variations on a half-forgotten 
theme of cosy sleigh and comfortable wrappers, 
all winding up with a crashing crescendo of hot 
oysters and merry reel. 

And to those young hearts, susceptible to 
frolic as to sentiment and throbbing for ever- 
changing excitement, what a delicious bound it 
sends ! 

“ Oh the bells, sleighing bells, 

What a world of merriment their melody foretells J” 

Yes, sleighing is glorious. ’Tis the next 
best thing to flying to sit in the light strong 
cutter and glide over the smooth surface with- 
out noise or jar, seeming scarce to touch it. 
Your glossy black, catching the lively inspira- 
tion of his bells, shakes his head in huge frolic, 


28 


Cross Purposes . 


stretches ont afresh and spurns the snow in 
lighter wreaths from his ever-quickening heels. 
Now for a brush ! See that yellow jumper just 
ahead. Hu-y-a-ah! and the reins tighten, the 
clean head goes straighter out, the snow- 
wreaths fly higher still behind the strong hoofs. 
We are off! We close the gap — the yellow 
sleigh gains once more — a length ; two ! Once 
more we close, and fly along neck and neck ! 
How the bells peal and shriek ! how the horses 
race now as if for their own honor ! How the 
clear, keen wind whistles past the fur-tipped ears, 
exhilarating like huge bumpers of champagne, 
as we fly along side by side for three hundred 
yards! Just ahead looms a huge “pung” 
loaded down and creeping over the snow. 
Now is the time ; now or never ! Straighten 
back, brace knee ! Down comes the lithe lash 
over the black’s flanks, and what a spurt we 
have ! The brown mare strains every muscle ; 
her driver lays flat back on the ribbons — now 
he plies his whip like mad ! He laps us again ; 
for a hundred yards you could cover them both 
with a blanket ! once more we forge a length 


Over the Snow. 


29 


ahead. We near the pung — we gain a length 
— two. Hu-ya-a-ah ! and the brown is in the 
air ! We feel her hot breath on our necks ; we 
just graze the pung, fearfully close, and wind 
in just before her ! 

Oh, that was glorious ! 

And if anything can add to the fun, it is to 
have a particular somebody tucked in beside 
one, with a pair of bright eyes that dance to the 
merry music of the rich laugh ; with a tiny 
hand that rests, in pretty fright, on the tense 
arm that guides the black a thought too near 
the scrapers of the yellow sleigh. And it is a 
problerii of easy solution : given, a neat cutter 
and a fast horse, to find any unknown quantity 
of tender femininity alongside. 

But haven’t I forgotten my story? 

I had just sprung the lock of my valise and 
wiped from my brow the drops that haste 
brought there even that bitter day, when Jones’ 
tally-ho ! rang through the frosty street: Giving 
a final caress to the mouche on the wounded 
chin reflected by my parting glance at the 
mirror, I rushed down with my baggage. 


3 ° 


Cross Purposes. 


Tom sat with the reins twisted round his heavy 
gauntlets, beaming and triumphant, and his 
moustache one solid cake of ice. The horses 
stood stock still, covered with rapidly freez- 
ing foam, and blowing out volumes of mist 
that formed in delicate frostwork around their 
nostrils. 

“What did I tell you? Look at the kit- 
tens,” was the driver’s salute ; and as if to cor- 
roborate it, the gray mare made a terrific lunge 
forward, while “Jalap” stood straight up and 
pawed the air. 

“ So-ho ! steady, boys !” and the lieutenant 
braced himself hard against the gray*, while 
the flexible wrist brought the long lash over 
the sorrel’s neck. “ So, there ! steady now*. 
Bundle in quick now, old boy, while they are 
quiet.” 

In bumped my valise, a signal for the brutes 
to execute another war-dance. Over the back 
seat I tumbled, and, as two pairs of heels threw 
a blinding shower of snow and icicles into my 
eyes and down my back, I went headforemost 
into the folds of the buffalo. Before the con- 


Over the Snow. 


3 1 

glomerate mass of valise and man was righted, 
we were off up the road in a full run, the sleigh 
jumping along like a football and Tom plying 
his whip like mad, keeping them at a full run 
while he yet had them well in hand. 

“ W-wliat do y-ou me-mean ?” I gasped, 
bumping about the back seat in huge discom- 
fort, as the biting wind, rushing down my 
throat with the force of a norther, nearly 
strangled me. “ Wh-hy don’t you st-opp-’m?” 

“ All right, my boy,” Tom answered cheerily 
through his set teeth ; and he braced every 
muscle afresh while the cruel lash descended 
on the flagging horses. “ All right ! you know 
I must bring ’em in quiet for Uncle Bob to 
see. So, lads, so-o-o ! now steady.” One long 
sway of his broad back brought them down to 
a canter, then into a swinging trot, and turn- 
ing into the mayor’s lane, we drew up at the 
door. 

“ There ! hold the ribbons ! I won’t be gone 
a second. Bet’s ready, I know and forcing 
the reins into my reluctant hands, Tom sprang 
out and disappeared in the doorway. 


32 


Cross Pitrposes. 


Now, after all my tirade about racing and 
sleighing and such stuff, one might reasonably 
suppose me a very Phaeton, or at least a 
Hiram Woodruff. But I was always strong in 
theories and — in confidence : that stuff was all 
talk — pure imagination. Practically, I never 
was the least bit horsey in my tastes, and always 
hated to drive unless I knew my beast to be 
perfectly harmless. In fact, I ever felt a tingle 
of brotherly sympathy for that bard of Cock- 
aigne who sang — 

“There’s something in a horse 
That I can always honor , but never can endorse .” 

Neither was I ambitious of the fate of 
Phaeton ; so, keeping one eye fixed on the 
gray’s ears and the other on the sorrel’s heels, 
I went hand over hand up the taut reins until I 
felt safe to straddle the front seat, and finally 
brace myself against the dasher. The gray 
still kept his head out and bore steadily on the 
bit, but the sorrel seemed to have had enough 
go in the late scamper, and pulled dead against 
him. Congratulating myself that the doctor’s 


Over the Snow. 


33 


horse acted as a counter-irritant on the drawing 
propensities of his mate, I began to be less en- 
tirely miserable in my new position. I tucked 
the buffalo carefully round my legs, and by the 
time Miss Bettie’s laugh rang out from the door- 
way, I actually plucked up spirit to turn one 
eye upon her. But the other was fixed on the 
gray’s ears like the optic of the Ancient Mar- 
iner, even while I nodded with a dismal affec- 
tation of jollity. And Mayor Blythe was 
saying : 

“ And you’re quite sure they are safe, are 
you?” 

“ Gentle as lambs, sir, as far as I know,” 
Tom answered, simply. “But ask the man 
that handles ’em. He drove them from the 
stable.” Had that young officer been studying 
the u Ready Liar, or Perjurer’s Companion”? 

“ Why, you can see they are, papa dear. I 
could drive them myself ; couldn’t I ?” and Miss 
Bettie’s eyes were turned on me. 

When Tom had spoken, my inmost soul was 
torn with a burning desire to do my duty, to 
throw myself upon the mayor’s breast and pour 
C 


34 


Cross Purposes. 


out my passionate belief that it was felony, 
willful murder, suicide, to go ! Now, had the 
reply jeopardized my immortal part for all eter- 
nity, I could not have answered that gurgling 
voice, thrilling through me like rich Burgundy, 
otherwise than by saying : 

“ Gentle as kittens, Miss Bettie ; hardly fresh 
even, Mr. Blythe.” And I chuckled with rue- 
ful hilarity. Then that infernal gray, as if in 
judgment, nearly took my shoulder out of the 
socket. 

“ I knew they were, papa dear. He would 
never risk me with them else ; and, you see, he 
is driving.” I was drunken, besotted, wild 
with the haschish of that emphasized pronoun. 
Those wondrous eyes shot me a glance of 
thanks ; the tiny hands clapped in glee, and 
closing on each side the gray whiskers, drew 
the old man’s face down to the ripe lips. A 
clicking kiss, seemingly all around me in the 
sharp air, drove me perfectly drunk with envy. 
I was wild enough to seize the whip Tom had 
thrown carelessly on the back seat ; but even in 
the madness of that supreme moment I had 


Over the Snow. 


35 

method enough left to keep it far back out of 
the gray’s sight. 

“ How impatient he looks, tucked up in his 
driver’s perch !” Tom said, airily, to his uncle. 
“ If the horses were only half as much so, we 
might have a lively ride.” 

I saw, out of the far corner of mine, Mr. 
Blythe’s eyes travel rather hesitatingly over the 
tense muscles of the gray. Oh how my soul 
went out in wild yearning that he might insist 
on that beast being exchanged for his own easy- 
going horse ! But just then the perverse brute 
of a sorrel stood stock still and hid the off-horse 
from his scrutiny. My hope went from out of 
me, and the blackness of despair settled down 
over me and that demon team. 

“Well, well; you must be careful of your 
off-horse — ” 

“ Of course he will, papa. And now, good- 
bye. Tom says we mustn’t keep them standing 
longer in the cold.” 

In thumped Miss Bettie’s bonnet-box, and 
both horses answered the shock with a simulta- 
neous thrill ; but I braced my back, and, though 


Cross Purposes. 


36 

my legs nearly went through the dasher, man- 
aged to keep that accursed gray still enough for 
Tom’s officious leavetaking to hide it from his 
uncle. 

“Oh yes, Uncle Bob, we’ll be very careful 
and drive very slowly. Go on, old fellow ; 
don’t wait a second for me.” And lifting Miss 
Bettie to her seat, Tom bounded over the scra- 
pers like a cat. “ Go on ! Why in the devil’s 
name don’t you ?” he whispered to me, pretend- 
ing to arrange the robes. Then he called his 
uncle’s attention to the new furs, and dug his 
elbow into my back. 

Don’t wait a second for me ! 

Ye gods ! Did the insane wretch mean me 
to drive in reality? Was / to guide that chained 
thunderbolt and that kicking demon before me? 
Yes ; Tom Jones evidently meant that. He had 
gone suddenly mad, beyond a doubt ; but I was 
in for it, and w’hat man dared I must. I took 
a long breath, let the whip fall well back out 
of the gray’s sight, and, bracing my every mus- 
cle firmly, uttered the mystic monosyllable, 
“ G’lang !” 


Over the Snow. 


37 


It cut like a knife through the clear atmos- 
phere, and the keen echo almost divided my 
tympana. The sorrel heard. He stretched him- 
self, gathered and made a merry plunge for- 
ward ; but that perverse brute of a gray only 
stuck his forelegs in the snow and sat down like 
a dog. Luckily, Miss Bettie managed to hold 
her father by such a string of prattle he noticed 
none of these circus-like proceedings. 

“Mind, papa ! don’t forget the flannel for old 
Mammy Watts ; and be sure to send the pickles 
to Bowser ; and have the presents on the Christ- 
mas tree, just as if I was at home — that’s a dear 
papa. And oh, be sure that Liza does the tur- 
key to a turn for dinner to-morrow !” 

“ That was to have been your dinner,” the 
old gentleman said, turning to me. “ That 
pleasure I must defer to please this small puss 
with her whims.” 

The mayor seemed to me a great distance off'. 
His words came to me through a sound in my 
ears like the boom of the sea, for that cursed 
gray still sat like a circus-horse and the sorrel 
pulled till his nose almost touched the snow. 

4 


3 « 


Cross Purposes. 


“ And oh, papa!” cried Miss Bettie with a 
timely little scream of recollection, “ now don’t 
forget the red wrapper for old Patience — that’s 
a dear !” 

“ Give that gray devil the whip,” Jones 
growled to me in a savage whisper, rounded 
off with something very like an oath. “You’ll 

have all the fat in the fire with such 

driving.” 

Give him the whip ! 

I thought before Tom Jones of the Boom- 
erangs had gone crazy. Now I knew, like all 
maniacs, he believed me as stark, staring mad 
as he was. 

“And, papa dear, don’t forget the brandy 
peaches for Dr. Lindsay — your present, remem- 
ber,” ran on that dear voice. Then it punc- 
tured through all my fear with the words, 
“ Now do go on, please .” 

Whether the electric spark that thrilled 
through me at that whisper ran down the reins 
and magnetized the gray, I never knew. Some- 
how we were in the road, the dasher full of 
snow, and that devil’s team going at a wild 








Over the Snow. 


39 

stroke that sent acute agony to the marrow of 
my every bone. 

“ Splendid ! Perfect ! Bravo !” shouted Tom 
from the back seat. “ Your start was a picture ; 
and that run into the drift and barking the pear 
tree don’t count, as the bend hid them from 
Uncle Bob.” 

I thought madly I heard a gurgling sound of 
female laughter. I was wrong, though, for that 
second she said to me, 

“You do drive splendidly, indeed. And how 
good of you to rest Tom’s arms ! Poor Tom ! 
why, how the reins have cut your hands !” 

“My arm is stiff as a poker, Bet. Ah, 
baby, that’s delicious !” 

Had I been driving the horses of the Sun, 
with the pit of Acheron gaping before me, I 
must have turned at that exclamation. There 
was misery in my spine and torture in my legs, 
but I did turn a little. Tom had pulled off his 
gauntlet, and she — yes, she was chafing his 
purple, ugly hand between two bewitching fur 
gloves ! 

“ See what a good cousin I am !” The black 


40 


Cross Purposes . 


eyes danced before me, and once more the mu- 
sical laugh trilled out beautiful and birdlike. 
With agony in my back and bitterness in my 
soul, I tried to echo it, but the hollow mockery 
ended in a ghastly groan as the brutes gave an 
extra plunge that nearly carried me over the 
dasher. 

The next twenty minutes were a nightmare. 
I hold in memory a vague jumble of blinding 
sunlight on the snow ; a whirling rush of trees 
and houses on the hill-sides ; a racking torment 
in back, knees and arms ; a whizzing whoo of 
wind in my half-frozen ears. Twice I essayed 
to look around at the couple behind me, but the 
commanda?ite in “Don Juan” was not more 
rigid than those strained leathers held me, 
while the molten fire rushing down my spine 
refused to let me bend my neck. I felt my 
hands must soon come off — my elbows and 
shoulder-blades pull clear from their sockets ; 
but still I held on, madly, wildly, in a sort of 
dreadful trance, for those twenty minutes. 
Then remembrance vaguely paints a roadside 
inn ; a collection of sleighs and men running 


Over the Snow. 


4 1 


into the road and waving their hands ; then a 
crash, a cutter flying wildly aside and a man in 
a somersault. Last came a grinding jar, and I 
awoke from my nightmare, half lying between 
Tom and his cousin on the back seat, the horses 
neck deep in a snow-drift and rough-coated men 
running for their heads. 

“ Splendid, by jingo !” yelled Tom to me as, 
hastily extricating himself from the buffalo, he 
ran to a man floundering in the road. “ You’re 
not hurt, I hope? I’m deuced sorry for the 
foul, but young horses — hard mouths — couldn’t 
help it. Beasts all right, I see. Come in and 
have something to drink.” 

I drew a long, deep, gasping breath. I tried 
to spring, but could only crawl, over the scraper, 
and helped Miss Bettie into the road. We were 
at the “ Bull’s Eye” tavern, five good miles from 
Piketon ! 

“Awkward fellow that,” I said, very cheerily, 
all things considered. I was hugely elated at 
being once more on terra Jirma , notwithstand- 
ing strong proclivities displayed by my legs for 
shutting up like jackknives. And I could 
4 * 


42 


Cross Purposes. 


scarcely resist pulling on the little white hand 
in mine, as though Miss Bettie were the gray. 
“Awkward fellow! Singular he couldn’t take 
care of his trap when he saw me coming. But 
some people never will learn to drive.” 

“Never l” meekly responded the little lady; 
but the eyes that met mine for a single second 
literally played in flashes of luminous merriment. 
What could she mean ? 






III. 

THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER. 

AM confident I am not at all of a 
jealous turn. Othello was ever my 
pet aversion among the creations of 
the “ divine William,” and he of the green 
eyes might have made his meat for ever before 
he should have fed on me. But then some 
things are too plain not to be seen by the 
plainest of men. 

It soon became perfectly palpable that there 
was some strange understanding between Tom 
and his cousin. It was very odd, too. I never 
had such suspicion before, but now, clear as 
daylight, it appeared, and demanded recog- 
nition. There was no doubting it : there was 
an understanding. It was evidently an arrange- 
ment to make me drive at the risk of all our 

43 



44 Cross Purposes. 

necks that he might sit by her. That his 
whine about his hands was all stuff was proven 
by the confidential, smothered talk they had 
kept up all the way, and by the meaning glances 
they exchanged even now. Yes, I could see it 
all now as plain as day — see it by his ever- 
expressive gesture, by his tender devotion as he 
led her into the little parlor of the tavern. 
Yes ! there was an understanding between 
those two too plain to be mistaken ; and then — 
But I know I can understand some things as 
well as the next man ! Had my eyes been 
blindfold heretofore? Had I been, like Ford 
in the u Merry Wives,” a secure ass? 

Tom pacified the overturned one, and gave 
him hot flip. Then, to show his forgiveness, 
the overturned insisted on our having hot flip 
with him, by which time the fussy landlady 
appeared and beckoned mysteriously to Tom. 
I have confidence enough in myself to believe 
that, even then, I was not an eavesdropper, 
but I could not help hearing, “ we might man- 
age to send a boy on horseback,” and that 
“ the dear young lady appeared so anxious and 



“ Perdition ! What a sight was there ! ” 


Page 45 












































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. 
































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♦ • 
















The Green-eyed Monster . 


45 


worrit in mind,” at which Tom disappeared 
abruptly. What the deuce did it all mean? 
More mystery ; so I took more hot flip with him 
of the tumble. After a time I heard Tom’s 
voice in the parlor again. I know not why, but 
I gulped my flip scalding hot, and strode to- 
ward the sound. 

Perdition ! What a sight was there ! Miss 
Blythe stood by the roaring grate ; her hood 
had fallen back upon her sloping shoulders, 
one perfect little foot resting in graceful negli- 
gence upon the fender. Her eyes, filled with 
tears, were lifted pleadingly to Tom’s, and her 
hands, yes, both her hands, clasped his shoulder 
so lovingly my teeth ground together before I 
heard her say, 

“ Right or wrong, Tom dear, I would do 
twice as much for you !” The room seemed 
going round with me. By heaven ! I would 
that very moment — No, I wouldn’t, either. 
What right had I to interfere? — and they didn’t 
even see me, so engrossed were they with each 
other. So I fled in my wrath and took more 
hot flip with the overturned, and then the over- 


4 6 


Cross Purposes. 


turned took more hot flip with me. Had that 
yellow tipple been the hemlock potion, I 
would have drained it just as eagerly, perhaps. 

“Waiting, old boy!” And the perfidious 
friend’s hand was on my shoulder. Had Lieu- 
tenant Thomas Jones, U. S. Boomerangs, ever 
seen Iago, in his celebrated role of Edwin 
Forrest , glare superlatively at some super- 
numerary Cassio , then would that officer have 
understood the look with which I turned upon 
him. He had never seen the great artist in his 
great part, however, for he only looked very 
contented and very happy as he said, 

“ I think I wouldn’t drink any more flip if I 
were you,” and we were out on the snow 
again. “ I’ll spell you at the reins a bit,” 
he added, with another queer look at me. 
“ Your arms must be tired, and I’m fresh as a 
lark again. Are you sure you’re all right there, 
Bet?” 

There was a tender intonation in the question 
that made me feel vicious, but the softened 
gurgle of her, “Yes, dear Cousin Tom,” set 
my very soul on fire. 


The Green-eyed Monster. 47 

Miss Blythe tucked the buffalo away, and 
made room for me on the back seat. Looking 
straight across country, and utterly ignoring her 
gesture, I clambered up beside my rival and 
tugged stolidly at the buffalo. 

“ All right, boys ! Let go their heads — 
now !” 

With a lurch and a swing we were off again. 
Once more we skimmed over hill and meadow ; 
once more the wind whistled merrily past us, 
and our bells chased it in a musical peal. 
But the sunlight on the snow looked black to 
me now ; the bells only tolled a requiem for 
my dead hopes, and the wind, in its backward 
rush, only hissed, “ She loves him ! She loves 
him /” 

Though the horses were freshened by their 
rest and pulled like steam tugs, Tom still found 
a way to turn and keep up a running talk with 
his cousin. But as he turned on the side away 
from me, and the words were swept back on 
the wind, only a confused murmur and none 
of their sense reached me. 

I don’t imagine any tumbril passenger, tick- 


4 8 


Cross Purposes . 


eted through for the guillotine, ever jolted along 
more miserably than I did those six miles. 
That morning I had loved Tom Jones as a 
brother. I had worshiped the very ground on 
which his cousin’s No. 13 slipper trod ; I would 
have crawled on my knees to have her accept 
the heart that was hers in its every pulse ! 
Now I hated that brevet second lieutenant with 
a mortal hate. I would sooner have mixed my 
heart in a hot flip, and proffered it to the 
bearded lip of the overturned, than have 
yielded it to the tenderest beseechings of 
the false, the perfidious, the shameless, Bettie 
Blythe. 

All things, however, even tortures, have an 
end, and in course of time we reached “ Shady- 
nook.” The unmated mistress of the mansion 
was on the porch, in the primmest of caps and 
most blankety of shawls, as soon as our sleigh 
whirled into the circular drive. Miss Anna 
flew down the steps and twined herself around 
Miss Blythe, still implicated in the furs. They 
were wrapped in each other’s arms I should 
calculate some twenty seconds— they seemed to 


The Green-eyed Afonster. 


49 


me as many minutes — and, as they uncoiled, I 
got the damaged remnant of a confidence. I 
distinctly caught the whispered words, “ the 
dearest of fellows !” and “ all fixed and ready,” 
from the perfidious lips of Miss Blythe. To me 
at that moment the Argus-eyed spinster, pano- 
plied in immaculate cap and ditto virtue, 
seemed a pitiful fagot of weak precautions. 
I felt bitterly superior to her unworldliness, and 
thrilled with unholy satisfaction that under her 
so guarded roof was introduced a clandestine 
passion none dreamt of save myself. 

As for Miss Anna, she seemed blonder and 
weaker and more white-mousey than ever in 
the reflection of the snow. I absolutely de- 
spised her as the symbol of fragility in her 
sex — as a phantom flower, without even the 
fibre, of womanhood. Tom seemed to share 
my feelings in this respect at least. He barely 
touched the tips of her fingers, and passed 
on to salute ancient Prudence in the porch. 
Who could wonder? The girl looked like 
bleached celery after the spice plant he had 
just left ! 


50 


Cross Purposes. 


Dinner that day was a cheerful meal. The 
old lady sat grimly at the head of the table, 
with me on her right, Tom and his cousin 
opposite and the White Mouse at my side. 
Bettie, from wild exuberance of spirits, sud- 
denly relapsed into deep quiet that was almost 
sadness. Tom, seeming frantically hungry and 
eating doggedly, said no word. Anna Belton 
never talked before her aunt, so the burden of 
conversation devolved on me. As I have said, 
the ancient un wedded was very deaf, and, like 
many deaf people, she had the special gift of 
yelling especially loud when she desired to be 
most confidential. Less for her convenience 
than to feed my new-born grudge, I enunciated 
most emphatically all I said to her, but at the 
guilty couple opposite. 

I. spoke most feelingly on the sin of deceiving 
doating parents — philosophically of the folly of 
impecunious marriages. This was a stirrup, and 
using it at once, the old lady mounted her hobby 
with agility surprising for her years, and jogged 
along till dessert. In common with every 
very crabbed spinster I ever met, she believed 


The Green-eyed Monster. 


5 * 


herself specially an fait in the delicate intrica- 
cies of the married state. Had her threescore 
years and ten been passed with a succession of 
inhuman but rapidly-removed husbands, she 
could not have reposed more implicit confidence 
in her perfect knowledge of double infelicity. 
And however she might wander from it, she 
invariably came back to money as the sole pivot 
around which all happiness in married life 
revolved. 

“Frightful indeed would it be,” was the pe- 
roration of her long lecture, “ if young girls 
were permitted to choose for themselves with- 
out consulting the wisdom of their elders. 
What is the use of our experience, our suffer- 
ings, our martyrdom, if we may not point out 
to our children the true path to happiness?” 

“What, indeed?” I assented in strident voice ; 
and then I added as a spur, “Ah, how many a 
poor girl carves out for herself a miserable 
future by an inconsiderate choice and a hasty 
plunge into the dark gulf of married life 1” 

I looked full at Miss Blythe, who never col- 
ored at my w’ords, nor even raised her eyes 


5 2 


Cross Purposes . 


from the pudding on her plate. As for Tom, 
he ate his in great, absent spoonsful, and seemed 
to have joined Mrs. Jellyby in one of her ram- 
bles to Africa. But my shot was not wasted 
It scattered, and one slug hit the spinster. “ Dark 
gulf” was good, and she bridled up in unmated 
pride as she answered : 

“ How many, indeed ! But I rejoice to be- 
lieve that some husbands are so well regulated 
as to have the will of their head, both for their 
law and their delight.” Here the old party 
raised her voice to the confidential pitch, some- 
where at A above the line. “ My own expe- 
rience is a proof of my belief, for next month 
my niece will — ” 

Miss Belton turned scarlet, only to grow more 
white and limp than ever. I understood then 
that her engagement must have been arranged 
and affairs hastened since her return ; but the 
allusion seemed peculiarly painful to her. 

“Aunty! aunty!” she cried, rising, “shall 
we not order coffee in the parlor ?” 

As we rose from the table the old lady took 
my arm and led me to the post of honor, the 


The Green-eyed Monster. 


53 


corner of her special sofa beside the great fire- 
place. The others grouped about the room, 
with the defiant purpose to be agreeable, but it 
was not written that the talk that night was to 
be pleasant to them. The aunt would give me, 
at her highest confidence pitch, the details of 
her strategy to surround Gold win, the enemy, 
and of her campaign to crush incipient mutiny 
in the White Mouse contingent. That casti- 
gated branch would wince at each fresh sen- 
tence, while the conscious couple from Piketon 
quietly stole glances at each other and weakly 
strove to turn the right of our position. But I 
had taken a lesson from the team I had driven 
into the snow-bank that day. When the old 
lady’s slackening pace gave symptoms of flag- 
ging, not the gray himself could have pulled 
more furiously forward than I ; when she gave 
faint evidence of a bolt from the road, not sorrel 
Jalap could have pulled more sullenly back- 
ward. I felt vicious in that atmosphere of de- 
ception, as the beasts had in the cold air, and, 
reveling in a rhapsody of spite, I felt it delicious 


54 Cross Purposes. 

to launch out stinging little sarcasms as they 
had their heels. 

Coffee over, I became what would have been 
unendurable, only Tom and his lady-love seemed 
strangely unconscious of the force of what I said. 
When I was rather more spiteful than usual, my 
tone rather than the words made them look won- 
deringly at me with what I could not but feel a 
most criminal assumption of innocence. Fi- 
nally, the hypocritical couple strolled to a port- 
folio of rare engravings ; the White Mouse 
retreated behind the piano-top and played — 
very well, too — some of Mendelssohn’s dreamy, 
moonlight-on-the-snow music. Still the grand- 
aunt droned her monotone about marriages, 
gave me minute narratives of all her family’s in 
the past, and, when my jealous spite was rap- 
idly yielding to sleepiness, came back to her pet 
theme of the White Mouse. I had gone through 
all the variations of the fact that she, yielding 
to the Ancient’s will, had become contracted in 
formal engagement to the man of twenty thou- 
sand a year, but now I heard' for the first time 


The Green-eyed Monster . 55 

that the marriage was to take place the week 
after Christmas ! 

“And there is serious reason, my dear sir, to 
outweigh all sentimental nonsense in Anna’s 
case. As you say, sir, so justly, there can be no 
happiness without an income — none, sir !” The 
old one laid her hand upon my arm ; she was 
becoming so confidential she absolutely yelled, 
“ What becomes of love and sentiment, and all 
that trash, I should like to know, when bakers’ 
and butchers’ bills begin to come in?” 

“ You are right, madam — a thousand times 
right !” I grew fervid ; I glanced at Jones. 
The engravings had ceased to turn over now ; 
his eyes were fixed full upon his cousin’s, and 
his lips moved, but inaudibly to me. His ges- 
ture, though, was strong and impassioned, and, 
even as I looked, those faces came very close 
together. At the moment his was turned from 
me, but hers assumed deep earnestness, the eyes 
filled and gazed beseechingly into his ; then his 
hand pressed a moment the rose-tipped one that 
rested on the pictures. 

God forgive me the bitterness that crept into 


5 6 


Cross Purposes. 


my heart then ; but it were hard to suffer more 
than I did at that glance. When I spoke my 
voice sounded, through the dead silence of 
the room, harsh and grating even to my own 
ears. 

“Yes, it is more than madness, it is crime, 
for any man to drag a woman down to divide 
less than one could starve upon with decency.” 

Tom had not one penny beyond his pay, and 
that stipend from the fostering government he 
was permitted to fight, bleed and die for 
amounted to nearly seventy dollars per month. 
I did not stop at the moment to consider that 
my income, from legal pursuits at the bar of 
Piketon, was an average of some sixty-five dol- 
lars less than his. But whv should I? I could 
never have plead to the indictment as to any old 
man’s daughter, as he and Othello might. But 
my shaft fell harmless. He did not even hear 
me, and, perdition ! the fellow-hand to the one 
he pressed came to the front and rested on top 
of his. 

Meanwhile, the ancient gal by me grew more 
and more concentrated from my sympathy, and 




The Green-eyed Monster. 57 

of course more and more hopeless in her effort 
to whisper. 

“ It is a priceless treasure,” she screamed, 
“ to have a child like mine ; a little self-willed 
sometimes, perhaps, but combining affection 
with prudence in a remarkable degree. She 
will be a picture of perfect happiness after her 
marriage with Mr. Goldwin” — the moonlight 
sonata stealing from behind the piano-top was 
cut short in mid-bar — “but I fear, I fear” — the 
eyes of the old Argus peered over her specs in 
the direction from which I could not draw mine 
— “ my old friend Blythe is very imprudent, 
very, indeed. Those cousins, sir, are too much 
together.” 

They heard this time. Dame Eleanor Speak- 
ing would have heard. 

Tom looked up. His face wore that expres- 
sion of mixed feeling and anxiety his broken 
conference had, left ; but yet the eyes that shot 
a glance at mine were full of arch amusement. 
As I dropped my gaze and crimsoned to my 
eartips, they again sought his cousin’s. That 
oval face was demure even to primness. Its 


Cross Purposes. 


58 

expression never changed, as Tom muttered 
something of which I only caught “ deaf as a 
beetle,” and “ expect her to be blind as a bat !” 
The expression never changed, but the black 
eyes glittered and danced in that madness of 
merriment I had never seen in those of any one 
else. 

“ Anna dear,” she said, moving quietly to the 
piano, “ it is very late, and we are keeping 
aunty up.” < 

Then, as it were, she extracted the blonde 
from behind the instrument and moved toward 
us as we stood around the fire. We all said 
good-night, but apparently in very different 
mood, and certainly in very different manner. 
Tom was peculiarly demure, but there was an 
odd twinkle in his eye as he wished the spin- 
ster pleasant dreams ; I felt an awkward con- 
sciousness that I had not acted too handsomely, 
and Bett'e Blythe, with what I considered pal- 
pable effrontery, offered me her hand. Had I 
been the Ice Fiend, she would have frozen at 
the touch of my fingers ; but she only smiled 
and kissed the Ancient. Finally, the White 


The Green-eyed Monster. 


59 


Mouse clung about the withered neck of her 
relative — who remained in blissful ignorance 
of having taken the whole party into her confi- 
dence — with what appeared to me most un- 
necessary fervor. 




IV. 

ODD CONFIDENCES . 

PRESSED my forehead close against 
the diamond pane of the old-fashioned 
chamber allotted to Tom and myself, 
and tried hard to think. But cold as the glass 
was, my brow grew hotter and hotter ; my 
brain refused to grasp but one idea, that I had 
been betrayed, that I was miserable ! 

As I had turned at the landing of the broad 
stairway, bed-candle in hand, I had looked 
back. The White Mouse had passed through 
the dim-lit hall with a quiet good-night to Tom ; 
he had lingered ; Bettie had returned, whis- 
pered two words so gently I could not distin- 
guish their purport ; he took her hand, and, 
distraction! her head dropped on his shoulder! 

I heard his whisper as though Stentor the 
herald had shouted the words : 



60 



Odd Confidences . 


6 1 


“ And you will never doubt me, dearest 
Bet r 

The eyes she raised to his were full of tears — 
no merriment in them now — but the voice was 
firm and had a loyal ring that said : 

“ You may trust me, dear Tom.” 

She was gone ! But not before his lips were 
pressed to her brow ; not before the sharp- 
edged certainty had severed from me my last 
shred of hope. 

When Tom Jones entered our chamber he 
was whistling ! 

Great heavens ! was she to link her fate with 
such a wretch? a hard, unsentimental animal? 
a thing who could receive a boon the gods 
might envy, and then — whistle? Was she to 
confide her future to a felon, who had forged 
a false key of friendship, had entered his 
uncle’s sacred places, stolen his greatest treas- 
ure, and then — whistled? 

I turned wrathfully. Reproof and the frost 
from the window-pane were on my brow. 
Murder was in my soul. 

“ Tom Jones,” I said, wkh that dignity for 
6 


62 


Cross Purposes . 


which I am noted under trial — •“ Tom Jones, 
there are times when silence becomes — in fact, 
when silence cannot — ” 

“ Come in !” cried Tom, cheerily ; not in 
reply to me, however, but to a low tap at the 
door. 

There was a mysterious pause, then a narrow 
chink opened, a shock head was inserted, a lank 
body followed it, and Bosley the groom entered 
the room. 

The man of curry-combs wore a loose frock 
and a somewhat frightened aspect ; but there 
was also an air of business and a strong odor 
of the stables about him as he closed the 
door after a wary backward glance through 
the hall. 

“ Yer wanted to see me, leftenant?” was his 
salutation as he fumbled in the pockets of his 
frock. 

I looked from Tom Jones to the hostler in 
speechless rage. Would he never cease to de- 
teriorate in my eyes? Was it not enough he 
had whistled after winning the love that would 
have glorified my life ? But now he must leave 


Odd Confidences. 


63 


that ravishing creature and consort with a 
musty stable-boy, to talk horse — perhaps of 
terriers and rats ! I could trust myself no 
longer. The spirit of Cain seemed descending 
upon me, and I rushed from the room and 
down the steps. 

I found myself in the parlor. 

The lights were out, but the fire still blazed 
up brightly in the ample grate. By its light I 
saw the misty outline of a white figure thrown 
full length upon the sofa. From the wavy out- 
lines and the soft fleecy effect of the subdued 
light, it might have been an Undine, or some 
unsubstantial sprite. 

I looked closely : it was only the White 
Mouse. Her face was buried in the cushion 
she clasped in her arms, and the fragile 
figure was swaying and racked with heavy 
sobs. The wavy masses of fair hair had fallen 
loose upon her shoulders, and the sleeve, care- 
lessly drawn back, displayed an arm that 
matched Bettie Blythe’s for roundness and 
symmetry. 

As the fitful firelight rose and fell, seeming to 


64 Cross Purposes. 

dilate and contract the contours of the delicate 
figure, I wondered why I never had noticed 
before how graceful and willowy it was. 

She did not hear my abrupt entrance. Her 
sorrow had full possession of her, and she 
sobbed as if her heart would break. What the 
matter was I knew not. It might have been a 
tiff with the Ancient Griffin, the death of a 
pet poodle or the trouble about her auriferous 
affianced. 

At all events, she had my perfect sympathy. 
She was miserable, and was not I likewise? 
Poor child ! Every sob went straight to my 
heart ; I really never before believed I could 
feel so kindly disposed toward her. But I felt 
my presence was an intrusion ; I thought she 
did not see me, and I started out. Just then a 
heavier sob than ever seemed to rend the poor 
child, and a shiver ran through her from head 
to foot. 

It was too much ; the softness of my heart 
conquered. I could not go without one word 
to tell her how I pitied her grief. 

In the tenderest manner I took her hand ; in 


Odd Confidences. 65 

the gentlest tone I said : “ Do not be unhappy ; 
do not weep so.” 

She started up with a stifled cry. On seeing 
me a vivid flush passed over her brow and 
neck, and she quickly withdrew her hand. 
Then the color fell out of her cheeks, leaving 
them deadlier white than ever, and she dropped 
her face in her hands as she murmured : 

“ Oh, you here ! You to see me !” 

I didn’t understand the emphasis on the pro- 
noun, but I only answered : 

“ Do not send me away before I tell you it 
was accident brought me here and sympathy 
detained me. You seem very miserable.” 

She glanced shyly at me from under the 
swollen lids. 

“ I was a little while ago. But I don’t feel 
so now,” she whispered. 

The deuce ! Here was an odd return for 
my sympathetic interference. I rather liked 
it, however, for I seemed to do the poor child 
good, and I felt so wretched and alone in the 
world. 

“ But oh what must you think of me?” she 
6 * E 


66 


Cross Purposes. 


cried, suddenly, and again the face went into the 
hands and again the blushes mounted up to the 
eartips. 

“I think — I — that is — I am very, very sorry 
to see you suffer,” I answered, somewhat incon- 
sequently. 

“ But to think you of all people — But you 
will never tell him?” 

Why I, “of all people,” I couldn’t conceive; 
but it was very safe to promise about “him,” 
as I had never set eyes on the grief-producing 
Goldwin. Therefore I answered honestly : 

“ On my word, never.” 

“ But then you know all ! Oh how for- 
ward, how unmaidenly, how bold you must 
think me !” 

What in the deuce the girl meant, why I 
should think her bold for not wanting to 
marry her grandfather, I could not conceive. 
So I only shook my head sagely. In medio 
tutissimus ibis. 

“ But then this never has seemed like home,” 
she went on. “ Aunty tries to be very good, 
but she doesn’t know how. And then a young 


Odd Confidences. 67 

girl may have strong feelings, and oh, I do love 
so utterly /” 

“ Wh-at !” I gasped, surprised out of propri- 
ety. “ The devil you do !” It was very im- 
proper ; but then to think of her being sold to 
a man of sixty, and then “ loving so ut- 
terly !” Wonderful creatures are women. My 
abruptness made her recoil, but it was only for 
a moment. 

“ Then you won’t think me immodest — un- 
womanly? I could not bear it. You, of all 
people in the world !” 

There it was again. Why in the deuce did 
she care for my opinion so much if she loved 
Goldwin “ so utterly?” 

“ Unwomanly ! never !” I said, vaguely. 

“ Oh, thank you ! thank you !” She was be- 
ginning to get excited again. “ I felt you would 
understand ; you have seen more of me than 
any one else ; you can make allowance for a 
young girl’s feelings overstepping the bounds 
of prudishness.” 

I rose and walked to the mantel. I began to 
believe that the stone sphynx that upheld it had 


68 


Cross Purposes. 


turned suddenly soft and blonde and crept into 
the form of the White Mouse. She was surely 
talking in riddles of the deepest. 

44 Tell me once more,” she said, following me 
to the hearth, “ that I lose nothing in your eyes 
by — by what you know.” 

44 Under any circumstances,” I began, warily, 
44 real, deep love — ” 

44 Oh, and how I do love! God knows how 
deep and pure is the passion that makes me 
forget all bonds and almost all proprieties ! 
What else could excuse my being able to speak 
of it now — to you? You know I am pledged 
unwillingly to another — ” 

44 To what !” I almost shrieked. 

44 To Mr. Goldwin, whom I — yes, whom I 
hate!” the girl answered, with ten times the 
spirit I thought in her. 

44 And you don’t — it isn’t — you don’t mean it’s 
Goldwin you care for?” I stammered in confusion. 

“Goldwin! Oh how can you jest with me 
at such a moment? You know whom I — you 
have long guessed even before I confessed my 
love for — for — another /” 





» * 


“ ‘ To what ! * I almost shrieked 


Page 68 












Odd Confidences. x 69 

Again the purple flood dyed her brow and 
neck, and then died quickly out. I felt deuced 
queer. Here was I alone at midnight, with a 
timid White Mouse, who had suddenly asserted 
herself, and told me she did not love the man 
she was engaged to, and “did so” love some- 
body else. There was nobody else except Tom 
Jones, now talking terrier with the groom up 
stairs, and — myself! Great heavens ! could the 
girl mean me? No, nonsense ! I must be mis- 
taken. I smiled a sickly smile to reassure my- 
self. Then I said : “ I don’t — that is, you 
know — I — could not — you would not suspect 
me of jesting about a — um — your sacred feel- 
ings.” She seized my hand impulsively and 
pressed it. 

“ They are sacred !” she cried — “ sacred as 
the first worship of a pure girl’s heart must ever 
be. Oh , you know, you must feel how strong 
and all-absorbing is the passion that can change 
me into a self-asserting woman ! that can make 
me defy prejudice and custom, as you see I do, 
when I say that I will give up home and friends 
— that I will face all the world and tell them 


7o 


Cross Purposes. 


boldly, as I now do you, that from the bottom 
of my heart Hove?' 

She dropped her face into her hands as she 
spoke the last word, but all the rest she had 
said with her eye fixed unswervingly upon 
mine and looking down into my very soul. I 
am considered by most of my friends to be 
rather a modest man. On this particular occa- 
sion, I must confess that I was rather taken 
aback and became rather misty in the mind. 
But there could be no doubt as to what the girl 
meant. Driven to desperation by her forced 
engagement, feeling the unbearable grasp of a 
hated fate tightening on her, she was — yes, there 
was no room for doubt — she was making love 
to me l 

For a second the base idea crept into my 
mind : Revenge ! Bettie Blythe, the jilt, the 
shameless flirt, cannot triumph over me if I 
marry the heiress of “ Shadynook” instead of 
the poor lawyer’s daughter ! For a second I 
was on the eve of clasping the White Mouse in 
my arms, and blackening my soul with the per- 


Odd Confidences. 71 

jury that I adored her — that I never had loved 
but her ! 

Thank heaven ! it was only for a second, 
when the unnatural, the frightful want of mod- 
esty stood naked in my sight. Much as I had 
despised the girl before, I actually loathed her 
now. But to tell her so ? There was the rub. 
I appeal to any young lawyer who has had an 
heiress make love to him at midnight if it isn’t 
a little awkward to refuse her? 

“ Miss Belton,” I said, at last, looking into the 
fire, u I make every allowance for your trials — 
for your unusual excitement that has driven 
you to say things to me you may wish unsaid 
to-morrow — ” 

“ To-morrow I shall glory in them even 
more than now !” 

u To-morrow you may regret,” I continued, 
heedless of the interruption, “ that you said 
them to me.” 

“ You are the sole man on earth to whom I 
would ever dream of speaking so !” she broke 
in hastily ; “ to no one else could I be so im- 
modest as to — to — ” 


72 


Cross Purposes. 


Here she melted into a perfect cataract of 
tears. I don’t like tears. They wash all the 
manhood out of me ; they dissolve me as if I 
were beet-root sugar. I began at once to regret 
the accident that had made the young woman 
care for me ; and, to try and be a little more 
gentle, I put myself through a strict cross-exam- 
ination as to whether I had ever given her any 
cause to believe I cared for her, any encourage- 
ment, any reason. But a hastily empaneled 
jury of Conscience, Habit and Memory acquit- 
ted me nem. con . 

Then, panoplied in the triple consciousness 
of right, I turned once more upon the young 
woman before me. 

“ Miss Belton,” I said, with an Arctic frigidity 
in my tone, “you will permit me to say that I 
am astonished and — ” 

“ Astonished ! Tou /” 

The invariable recurrence of that pronoun 
and the dreadful emphasis upon it were begin- 
ning to wear my patience out. I continued 
rather hastily : 

“ Astonished, surely ; and I may say pained 


Odd Confidences. 73 

at the — a — the confession of what I cannot but 
consider a passing — a — caprice.” 

The White Mouse flashed round at me. She 
seemed to expand and dilate in the flickering 
light, and her lips were compressed till they 
seemed very white in the reflection. 

“ May I remind you such a suspicion is in- 
jurious to my modesty?” she said, coldly; “but 
I know in my heart I will prove to you by my 
whole future that my love is a part of my being 
— will end only with my life !” 

Did ever a modest man meet such persistence ? 
I could not strike that girl and crush her where 
she stood. Oh how I longed for a man in her 
place ! for had he been the Benicia Boy I should 
have pounded him then and there. Morally 
certain that the white-haired young creature 
was dying of love for me, half persuaded that 
she was going to marry me then and there by 
force, what could I say? I stared blankly at 
her, while a smile of wonderful sweetness stole 
round her lips as she murmured, half to 
herself, 

“ Let the world say what it will ; love like 
7 


74 Cross Purposes. 

mine purifies all. We will be very, very 
happy” 

Tender of heart, I began to pity the young 
woman. Laboring under a terrible hallucina- 
tion about the future as she was, there was still 
something almost sublime in the faith she held 
in the power of her love. Its spell began to 
work on me. Rapidly I ran over my chances 
for the future if I fell into her views. I almost 
began to waver, though half unconsciously, as 
I said, 

“ You would be sacrificing everything. Mr. 
Goldwin’s fortune is immense, and — ” 

“ Goldwin’s fortune! I had rather love an- 
other with the coat upon his back unpaid for 
than that creature in an emperor’s robes.” 

By Venus ! she seemed in earnest. There 
was that in her eye I could not disbelieve. But 
how in the world did she know that my coat 
was not paid for? That it was a fact did not 
make it a subject to dwell on ; and then it was 
so deucedly unsentimental ! Still the girl’s sin- 
cerity and evident truth so touched me that it 
was very meekly I returned to the charge, and 


Odd Confidences. 75 

then I only set up objections for her to knock 
down. 

“ But in throwing over Goldwin,” I said, 
more gently, “ you do not reflect how you risk 
your own fortune — ” 

“ My own fortune ! Oh you have never loved 
as I do, or you would see that could not weigh 
one grain of sand. My fortune ! Can you 
think me selfish, base enough, to set that trash 
for one moment against one single look, one 
single word, of love?” 

Now that was no doubt very noble, very 
heroic, but then it was also decidedly indis- 
creet. It might have done on the stage, but 
hardly here. I had not a dollar, as she well 
knew ; and }'et this inscrutable young female 
could not only make love to me off-hand, but 
could talk of her fortune whistled down the 
wind as if it were not ten cents in stamps. 

“ But there is no danger of that,” she added, 
carelessly, “ for my aunt could not be angry 
with me a week. She would forget her disap- 
pointment — we should both be equally dear to 
her.” 


*j6 Cross Purposes. 

Here was balm in Gilead ; for the Ancient 
Griffin, besides the Grove estate, was reputed 
“ very warm.” I looked thoughtfully into the 
fire, and the words fell upon my shocked mod- 
esty and sore wonderment like soothing balsam. 
Railroad shares — bank shares — corners in Erie 
— brown front on the Avenue, — all passed in 
rapid panorama between my eyes and the 
glowing coals. There was a half relenting 
in my voice as I said, “Are you very sure of 
that?” 

“Very sure. But what of that? He whom 
I love ” — and the girl fixed her eyes full upon 
mine with never a blink nor a tremor — “ he 
whom I love would value it all as trash.” 

The deuce he would ! Then I little knew 
myself. But the information just given was 
sufficient, and I began to see daylight. I actu- 
ally believe for the last ten minutes I had for- 
gotten the very existence of Bettie Blythe. I 
had not even remembered the little shock to my 
pride at finding out her duplicity — had lost even 
my ire at Tom Jones’ perfidy. I was doing a 
little sum in mental arithmetic, in which the 


White Mouse was the exponent of an unknown 
power of farm, manor-house and woodland. 

But I could not restrain my desire to speak at 
least part of the truth. She was leaning now 
upon the mantel, her pale forehead resting upon 
her right hand and her left hanging carelessly 
by her side. I took that left hand in my own, 
not without a twinge of conscience. 

“ You and I have long been friends,’’ I said. 
“We are sympathetic, perhaps, but we hardly 
know each other well enough yet to speak 
surely of certain things.” 

She withdrew her hand very gently. 

“Why not?” she asked. 

“ Because it may be — that is — ” (it was hor- 
ribly embarrassing to explain) — “ are you very 
sure that you love — a — that you know your own 
mind?” 

“ As sure as that I live !” She spoke earnestly 
and absently, but looked straight into the fire 
and never once at me. 

“And you do — you think — that is you have — 
in your own mind you have reason to trust 
that—” 


Cross Purposes. 


7 s 

“ Had I not a certainty beyond trust — beyond 
reason,” she broke in — “ I had been false to my 
sex to speak to-night to you.” 

Wonderful power of love ! Wonderful con- 
fidence of passion ! 

But where in the deuce had I ever given her 
one reason to believe I cared for her? Once 
more the triple jury held a hasty session over 
me ; once more I was triumphantly acquitted. 

“Anna,” I said — very gently now — “perhaps 
your aunt would not forgive. Would you be 
willing to sacrifice everything, to endure pov- 
erty even, for the sake of your love !” The girl 
only looked at me for answer, but that strange 
smile flickered once more around her lips. 
“And suppose you do another more than jus- 
tice — suppose your loss of fortune should 
change feelings you now believe — ” 

“ Never !” she said. “ My love is too secure 
for that.” 

“ And would it override all obstacles ? Would 
it forgive a recent rivalry, and the love that is 
even now scarcely driven from the heart you 
would make your own ?” 


79 


Odd Confidences. 

Anna Belton, the White Mouse, turned short 
upon me. Something in my words transfigured 
her. She was a very Pythoness, and her eyes 
flashed fire as she drew her slender height up 
before me. 

“Silence, sir!” she cried. “Perhaps I am 
rightly punished for forgetting I was still a 
maiden who should not speak. When you 
spoke of money, you merely injured me. To 
intimate the possibility of a rival is insult ! 
After all I have said to you, after all you know, 
it is bitter insult, which I will not listen to.” 

And the young person swept out of the room, 
utterly ignoring the hand I stretched out to 
detain her. 

I looked stupidly into the fire. No bank 
stocks, no Erie, no brown stone there now — 
only a charred and fast-blackening mass of 
coal, typical of my own desolation and pitiable 
plight. 

And even as I gazed the face that rose before 
me was not Anna’s, but Bettie Blythe’s. 




V. 

* 

IN THE DEPTHS. 

OW long I gazed stupidly into the fire 
I know not, but the shadow of the past 
rose out of it, shutting out the present 
utterly. No sooner was the pressure of her 
presence taken off than my mind rebounded 
from the White Mouse. I forgot her very ex- 
istence, and my whole soul, as if in punishment 
for my momentary desertion, went forth in 
bitter yearning after my lost darling. 

Blacker and blacker grew the coals, and with 
them the gloom of my thoughts grew deeper 
and deeper ; but, bitter as they were, the cold 
became more bitter still, and I was literally 
driven by it to seek my own room. 

As I entered the door I almost ran over the 
hostler, who was still engaged in his mysterious 
interview with Tom. 

80 



In the Depths . 


81 


“And you are sure you understand perfectly, 
Bosley?” the latter was saying. “We must 
have no risk of a mistake this trip.” 

“ I got it all yere, plain as writin’,” re- 
sponded sagely he of the stables as he tapped 
his forehead. “ Let ’un zee : moon rises at 
three, starts at four, drives nineteen miles in 
two hours and a half, and feeds light on cut 
feed and looks out for Jalap’s kickin’ of he near 
fore leg.” 

“ Right as a trivet, Bosley ! You’re a trump 
and this is yours and Tom chucked the fellow 
a bright half eagle as he left the room. Then 
he jerked off his coat, and lighting a Havana, 
blew great clouds of smoke as he threw himself 
on the bed. 

I could stand it no longer. 

As the grinning groom left the room I turned 
upon Tom and prepared to charge. But he 
was ahead of me. 

“ Hold a bit, old boy,” he said. “ I have 
treated you badly, I know.” 

A fierce snort was the only response I deigned 
to give. 

F 


32 


Cross Purposes . 


“ Yes, I know it, but prudence was essential. 
You’re not riled?” 

* 

“ Riled !” I answered, with forced calmness. 
u I can’t see how you have used me badly, but 
you must permit me to say you have done your - 
self great injustice.” 

Tom looked gravely at me. He seemed a 
little puzzled. 

“ And you have done a palpable, a gross in- 
justice” — I was grand now, doing the outraged 
virtuous — “ to an old person who — ” 

“ Oh, bother the old person !” he interrupted, 
carelessly. “ But then you have really twigged 
what I am up to in the morning?” 

“ In the morning !” A ray of light began to 
dawn upon me. 

Yes, in the morning. I’m going to — now, 
old boy, don’t look scared — I’m going to run 
away and be married !” 

To be married ! And in the morning ! The 
ray of light was a blinding gleam now. I was 
literally staggered. I dropped into a chair 
with a big lump in my throat and a potsherd in 
the roof of my mouth. 


In the Depths . 


83 


“ Yes, my boy, I’m to be married in the 
morning. You know I’d have told you before, 
but Bet and I only fixed it yesterday. She 
arranged it all in the sleigh as we came along ; 
and, for reasons you know so well, we must 
be quick ; I’m done for if the old party suspects. 
But it’s all fixed — you’re to help me.” 

“/ help you !” I gasped, faintly. 

“Certainly. Who else? You must come 
with us ; you must be best man ; you must 
go with us to Uncle Bob and help Bet explain 
all about the — ” 

“ Lieutenant Jones !” — I rose stiffly and stood 
at attention as Tom’s eyes opened very wide — 
“ Lieutenant Jones, I have no criticisms to make 
on your cousin’s course. If she desires to — ” 

“ Desires ! the devil ! why, man, she planned 
the whole thing — arranged the 'Christmas frolic, 
suggested all the details of the elopement, and 
she specially insisted you should aid us.” 

“ She did?” 

“Yes; she said you were so fond of us both 
you’d be glad to do it.” 

Oh the cruel girl ! the hardened, ingrained 


8 4 


Cross Purposes . 


flirt! This was why she had led me on then. 
This was why she let me wander on in a fool’s 
paradise, only to be used as a cat’s paw. But 
had she led me on after all? That was the 
question that even in this bitter moment would 
force itself upon me. Tom kept on, speaking 
rapidly, but with no sense to me in the sound 
till I caught : 

“ So you see, my dear boy, it was she orig- 
inated the affair ; she planned every detail, 
not I.” 

“ Stop, sir !” I cried, hoarsely — my face must 
have been purple ; it felt black — “ you have a 
right to run away, perhaps — to stoop to any- 
thing you please — the lady is to be your wife . 
But, by heaven ! you have no right to com- 
promise your cousin by saying these things.” 

“ There’s something in that,” Tom muttered, 
thoughtfully ; “ I mustn’t let Bet’s name get 
out, of course. I only told you, you know.” 
I gave a grunt that was meant for scalding 
sarcasm. “ Bet will tell you all about it 
herself.” 


“ Oh, she will,” I panted. 


In the Depths. 


85 

“ To be sure. She told me she could make 
it all right with you. That’s what we were 
talking about when you drove over the cad 
to-day.” 

Oh the cold-blooded, heartless coquette ! To 
deliberately plan a torment for me thus ! And 
he, my old schoolmate, my bosom friend ! If 
the soft answer that turneth away wrath had 
been a deadly weapon, I should have used it 
then. But it wasn’t, so I said no word, only 
strode about the room, loosening my neckcloth 
by fierce and sudden tugs. 

Tom, lying flat on his back and puffing little 
wreaths into the air, eyed me with some won- 
derment. At last he said, cheerily : 

“ Well, old boy, don’t take on so. It’s as 
sudden for me as it is for you, and a deuced 
sight more serious to boot. So I’ll count on 
you, of course, in the morning.” 

“ Count on me ! I tell you I’ll have noth- 
ing to do with it. Your uncle Blythe would 
never — ” 

“ Popcorn ! I say, Bet will make it all 
right with Uncle Bob. I verily believe he’d 

8 


86 Cross Purposes. 

have helped us if we had dared to trust our 
secret.” 

“ Helped you ! Mr. Blythe not object ! And 
still you are mad enough to risk letting the 
tongue of gossip soil the name of the woman 
you love ! You plan this mad escapade far 
away from his roof when he might have 
consented — 

“To w'hat?” Tom sat bolt upright on the 
bed, resting on his hands, behind him. A 
strange, fitful contraction swept over his face, 
followed by a very grin of agony. I was 
merciless. 

“ To your union with his daughter,” I said, 
sternly. 

My words struck him like a bullet. He 
clenched his teeth until the cigar dropped in 
two from them ; his face grew crimson, its mus- 
cles twitched convulsively and his chest heaved 
with a desperate struggle for breath. Then, 
with a gasping sob, he buried his face in the 
pillow, while his whole frame shook and trem- 
bled like an aspen. 

I was pained, shocked. The sight of “ the 


In the Depths . 


87 


tears of bearded men” is always touching be- 
yond expression ; and besides, I was at a loss 
to account for the great violence of his sudden 
emotion. Had my words, harsh and bitter 
as they were, waked him to a keen if tardy 
sense of his wrong-doing? Or had the strain 
of continued excitement, the near success of 
his sudden plan and the shock of my refusal 
to aid it been too much for his overwrought 
nerves ? 

I became more puzzled as I looked, for he 
still sobbed and shook with the weakness of a 
child. 

I walked up and down the room, and tried to 
think more calmly. After all, I had no real 
claim on Miss Bettie. She had refused me 
once and never allowed me to address her 
again ; I could not but confess that. True, she 
had let me think there was hope ; but what 
woman is strong enough to refuse to sniff the 
incense burnt upon the altar of her vanity? 
Then Tom, too, was an old and tried friend. 
Poor fellow ! how he shook and groaned in his 
great agony ! and if a vicious flirt had cruelly 


88 


Cross Purposes. 


played upon my feelings through him, why 
should I let that react upon his head? 

No ! I would be a Roman ! a very Pythias ! 
I would crush down my own feelings into my 
heart ; I would brave the mayor’s anger ; I 
would die of smothered rage ; but her feline 
triumph should be cheated of the prey it would 
tease and torture ! 

Yes, I would do as she had planned for me. 
I would see her wed another, would give her 
away at the altar, and not one of the thousand 
torments that were rending me should give her 
the expected pleasure of its evidence. 

Twice Tom had raised his head and moved 
his lips in a fruitless essay to speak ; twice a 
torrent of mixed passions had swept over him, 

“ And then a moment o’er his face 
A tablet of unutterable thought was traced, 

And then — ” 

he buried it in the pillow again. There was 
something in his eyes that made me shudder 
with a shapeless, undefined dread that his 
reason might give way. 


In the Depths. 


s 9 


Now he lay quiet. He had ceased to sob, 
but his face was still buried in the pillow, while 
ever and again a quick, hysteric shudder ran 
through him. 

I laid my hand kindly on his shoulder : 
“ Tom, old fellow, I was hasty.” 

He slipped away from my touch like a hurt 
child, and again the shudder, longer and more 
marked than before, thrilled through him. 
After a moment he lay still ; then slowly he 
raised his face to mine. It was marked and 
drawn from the intensity of the inward struggle. 
Ever and anon a sharp spasm of acute agony 
shot across it, only controlled by his sharp teeth 
gnawing the yellow beard. 

I respected his feelings too much to look upon 
his suffering ; I blew out the candle. 

“ My dear old boy !” he muttered hoarsely. 
The voice was still much broken, with a hys- 
teric catch in it. I only pressed his hand for 
answer, but I felt the bed shake under me with 
the effort he made to control himself. It was a 
mighty one. Then he spoke again. 

“We have been friends for years,” he said. 

8 * 


9 ° 


Cross Purposes . 


“You know me for a man of honor, and I 
pledge you that honor my — my uncle will be 
fully and entirely satisfied when — when he 
learns — that — that I have married his daugh- 
ter r 

Once more his feelings overcame him ; once 
more he crushed his face into the pillow while 
the gust of passion rent and shook him. 

I was more mystified than ever. My head 
ached again as I thought over the whole affair 
and tried to reconcile its opposite bearings. If 
Mayor Blythe did not object to Bettie’s marriage 
with her pauper cousin, where was the need for 
this clandestine frolic? And if he did object, 
how could Tom satisfy him afterward so surely? 

Was he deceiving me? No, he was a man 
of honor ; he would never stoop to that. But, 
then, why this terrible emotion he could not 
control ? 

A startling thought leapt into my brain. 
Great heavens! was Tom drunk? Had he 
gotten liquor from Bosley, the hostler? No, 
that was too absurd. 

I gave it up ; I was dead beat. 


In the Depths . 


9 1 

Still wondering, I threw myself ready dressed 
upon the bed. Tom lay quiet now, but I in- 
tended to watch him by the fitful firelight, lest 
his intense excitement should make him really 
ill. 

But the narcotic administered by the ancient 
spinster, added to my unwonted exertions be- 
hind those demon horses in the frosty air, were 
too much for me. 

I slept profoundly. 




VI. 


THE DARK HOUR BEFORE DAY. 

OW long I slept I know not, but I was 
lying only half wakened when I heard 
a very gentle tap at the door. 

The moon had risen, and her great white 
disc shone clear over the trees, throwing a 
broad light into the room. Tom heard the tap 
and sprang up on the instant. By the moon- 
light I saw that he was dressed as when he first 
threw himself down, and could not have been 
to bed. As he opened the door gently, 

“ Sh — h, dear Tom !” said a soft voice in the 
hall. 

I recognized the voice, and was wide awake 
instantly, every sense acutely active. 

“ The moon is up, and I heard Bosley take 
92 





The Dark Hour before Day. 93 

the sleigh over the snow about ten minutes 
since,” the voice said. 

“ I’m all ready, Bet dear ; won’t be a minute.” 

“ I couldn’t trust the servants, of course, and 
fearing you’d be too late, I thought I’d call you 
myself,” Bettie answered. 

Great heavens ! what an escape I had made ! 
How had I misunderstood that girl ! Here was 
a bride elect on the very verge of a runaway 
waking her lover herself, urging haste in his 
movements, and generally being as cool as a 
cucumber. Yesterday had shown Miss Blythe 
to me as utterly without heart ; to-day proved 
her equally wanting in delicacy. 

“That’s right,” she added, coolly. “Anna’s 
all ready, and the old lady sleeps like William 
Tell; so hurry, dear.” 

I . breathed a fraction more freely. At all 
events, she was to have another female in the 
escapade. That would be more respectable, 
perhaps, when the affair came to be talked of. 
But how had she persuaded that little milk-and- 
water thing to brave her Argus and the proprie- 
ties at such an hour and for such a purpose? 


94 


Cross Purposes. 


I actually pinched myself to see if I was 
really awake. The whole thing seemed like 
an ugly dream, and I could scarcely realize that 
a single day could have crowded into it the 
overturn of all my hopes that had almost grown 
to certainties ; the substitution of so unexpected 
a rival ; and, more than all, the unheard-of 
fact of Anna Belton stepping so far out of her 
modesty as to make me a formal declaration of 
love ! 

No ! I was wide awake ; the whole series 
was only too real, and there was Bettie Blythe 
standing at our door in the gray dawning. She 
was really going to run away with her cousin ; 
she had in very fact driven me to desperation, 
and she had actually persuaded the White 
Mouse to rebellion. 

It was really remarkable what wonderful 
sway she could exert over all who came within 
her influence. And yet there was no tremor in 
her voice to show the slightest agitation. By 
George ! she was going to clandestine matri- 
mony as she would to her breakfast ! 

“He’s ready? He’s going with us, of 


The Dark Hour before Day . 95 

course,” Miss Blythe definitely said. “ You 
told him I would settle that?” 

An irrepressible groan of ra-ge and despair 
burst from me. They did not notice it as Tom 
answered : 

“ Oh yes. But you must be careful to ex- 
plain fully as soon as you can.” 

“ Leave him to me,” was the short answer. 
“Now wake him.” 

“ In one minute ; he’s all dressed,” Tom re- 
plied, cheerily. “ But you ought to know that 
he thinks—” He stepped into the hall and 
drew the door gently behind him. 

He was only gone a moment. A sound of 
whispering and a half-smothered sob came 
over the transom ; a light step tripped up the 
hall, and Tom re-entered with his hands pressed 
over his face. 

Then I knew he had told her how I had 
spoken. I felt a thrill of triumph that she 
heard I had borne the news so calmly. 

“ Wake up, old fellow.” 

Tom stood by my bedside, and I saw in the 
moonlight something of the expression on his 


9 6 


Cross Purposes. 


face it had worn the night before. It died out, 
however, as I spoke. 

“ I am awake. I have no dressing to do,” 
I said, gloomily ; and getting up, I plunged 
my face into the icy water until it was nearly 
numb. 

We were soon ready. Walking stealthily as 
burglars, Jones and I reached the foot of the 
broad stairway. The back door stood wide 
open, and the moonlight, faintly reflected from 
the dark panels, showed two muffled and veiled 
figures waiting us. Was it a wonder that my 
heart fluttered and pounded against my ribs? 
The very novelty of the position would have 
excused that, for I had never been engaged in a 
runaway until the day previous, and this was 
one of such a different nature ! 

But my mind was fully made up ; my resolu- 
tion as inflexible as granite. I would bear me 
like a man. One of the veiled figures ap- 
proached ; a whispered word in Tom’s ear and 
a gasping sound, half sob, half laugh, burst 
from him. The finger of the veiled figure 
raised itself in warning ; he buried his mous- 


The Dark Hour before Day . 97 

tache in his fur collar and was silent. Even in 
that uncertain light I recognized the finger as 
the taper one I was determined should never 
point in scornful triumph to my weakness, and 
I braced myself afresh. 

“ You’ll take Bet,” Tom whispered hoarsely 
in my ear. Once more he pressed both hands 
against his face as if to repress his feelings. 

Like an animated statue I advanced and 
offered my arm to the veiled figure nearest me. 
For I was resolved ! She should never have 
one ray of triumph over me to brighten the 
blackness of the wrong she was about to do her 
doting father. 

I noticed the little hand she rested on my 
arm trembled slightly. She had some feeling, 
then? It was more than I had suspected, but 
I only grew stonier and stonier. I set my face 
like a flint. Tom approached her companion 
very quietly, drew her arm through his with 
more deference than I thought necessary with 
such a weak, inane little bridesmaid, and led 
the way out of the hall on tiptoe. Silent as the 
grave, we followed. 


9 8 


Cross Purposes. 


As we stepped out into the moonlight, I felt 
rather than saw the veiled face by me turn up 
to mine. I shivered from head to foot, but 
that, perhaps, was partly owing to the bitter 
cold of the dawn, and looked straight ahead. 
Then, once more, I heard that bursting but re- 
pressed sigh ; once more the tremor of her 
frame was so painfully evident that I almost 
wavered in my belief of her heartlessness. Did 
she at last repent? Did she really feel the 
heavy crime she was committing toward her 
father? Or, great Heaven ! could there be the 
barest possibility that she had awakened? 
Could she feel that even now it was not too 
late — that she had not utterly thrown away a 
heart she could never replace? There was 
such delirium in the bare idea I almost framed 
the wild hope into words. But pride as much 
as honor came to my rescue. I was pledged 
to Tom, and I was silent. 

Softly and swiftly we followed the other 
couple over the crisp, crackling surface of the 
snow ; down the broad lane, under arching 
trees that sifted the moonlight through them in 


99 


The Dark Hour before Day. 

silver spangles ; through snow-clad hedgerows 
standing like an army of spectres at present 
arms. 

Here we found the sleigh, the impatient 
horses blowing out great clouds of mist, and 
the more impatient groom blowing out greater 
clouds of smoke from his black pipe as he 
stood at their heads and wrestled with them 
for the bits. 

“ Well, leftenant, we’s pretty nigh a-freezed,” 
was his salutation. “ All ready, sir, and un’s 
in fust-rate trim : do the nineteen miles in two 
hours sure 1” 

Tom answered never a word. He almost 
lifted the light form of his bridesmaid into the 
back seat, and as he tucked the buffalo around 
her with most unnecessary care, I saw she had 
pressed her handkerchief to her eyes and was 
sobbing bitterly. Poor fragile child ! I thought. 
To feel thus for the folly of another, and that 
other — I cast one glance, my first, at the still 
figure on my arm. Not a sign was there of any 
emotion, not a single ray of feeling, not a spark 
of repentance, only a show of impatience as the 


IOO 


Cross Purposes. 


lithe ankle tapped the small boot sharply 
against the ringing crust of the snow. I was 
steel again. Pshaw ! she was a doll. She 
might have been stuffed with bran for all the 
heart she had ! 

“ I’ll drive,” Tom said to me shortly. 

He looked very grave and pale now as he 
bundled his bride into the front seat with much 
less ceremony than he had used to her brides- 
maid. Then he gathered up the reins as I 
stepped in beside the still weeping blonde. 

The imperturbable Bosley released the bits 
and stepped aside. The horses reared and 
plunged furiously before they settled down to 
their stroke, and in the pause the stolid groom 
raised one corner of his fur cap, scratched 
his shock with one finger and muttered to 
himself : 

“Jest as ef marry in’ warn’t bad enough no- 
how ! And to git up afore day and friz their- 
selves this way! Well, I’m sorry for them 
horses, that’s all !” 

We were off, and this our bon voyage. 


y 



VII. 

VICTORY ! 

took a road utterly unknown to me — 
p hill and down, now winding between 
3w hedgerows or under high, aisle-like 
trees ; again cutting through stretches of level 
snow undotted by house or bush. 

No one spoke a word. I had plenty of time 
to think, but somehow my ideas refused to 
come in any sort of order. Events had fol- 
lowed each other with such rapidity in the last 
twenty hours that they made me feel, in my first 
moment of perfect rest, much as a gymnast must 
after having made a flying wheel of himself. 
Then it was so bitterly cold, and Tom kept the 
horses at top speed, sometimes in a swinging 
trot, sometimes in a full gallop, till the keen 

wind sung past my ears with a sharpness that 
9 * 101 




102 


Cross Purposes. 


threatened to take them off. One thought, 
however, kept rolling uppermost in the surging 
stream of ideas — to be true to my proud resolve 
not to aid her triumph by one weak look even ! 
And there she sat, crouched up in the buffalo, 
holding her muff before her face, and seemingly 
more anxious about the tip of her nose than 
about her future state. Once she turned, looked 
pityingly at her weeping friend. 

“ Don't cry so, Anna darling. It will soon 
be over.” 

Ye gods ! Here was coolness for you ! But 
the tender one, far from seeming comforted, 
only bowed her head still lower, while she 
ceased to sob. 

At last the moonlight waned. A pale, sickly 
flush rose over the face of the east, and* as 
we reached the crest of the next hill the day 
broke. 

Tom turned two or three times in the next 
mile and glanced uneasily at the still, bent 
figure beside me. It seemed to me he took 
very unnecessary interest in that young person’s 
crying. Perhaps, however, her evident reluc- 


Victory ! „ 




tance to aid in his disgraceful proceeding 
raised remorse in his bosom. Still, I rather re- 
spected the White Mouse for her sympathy 
in her friend’s unwomanly position ; and as we 
passed the next heavy shadow of trees I tried 
my hand at consolation. Stooping toward her, 
I said very gently : 

“ Pray be comforted. A foolish girl will 
throw herself away sooner or later, you know. 
Believe me, if my opinion is of any value to 
you, I feel that none of the sin, little of the folly, 
of to-day is at your door. I know you were en- 
trapped into it ; I know you wouldn’t do it if 
you could help yourself.” 

The others had failed, but I was successful. 
The weeping White Mouse stared at me a 
moment, straightened herself up, and the same 
flash she had left me with the night before came 
into her eyes. Then she dried them, stuffed 
handkerchief and hands into her muff and 
looked dead at the gray’s ears. 

At first I hardly understood that look ; then I 
was fully satisfied. She really did love me 
then, after all, and my ire at the perfidy of the 


Cross Purposes. 


104 

pair before us woke a sympathetic flash in her. 
I said nothing now. I felt she would be com- 
forted by the commendation of the man she 
loved so strangely. 

Up the steep we rattled, and straight ahead 
of us, at the base of the winding hill, stood a 
little country church, its graceful spire and old- 
time mouldings standing out in clear cut sil- 
houette against the white-clad hill behind it. 
Tom straightened himself up, pointed to the 
church with his whip, and then, without a word, 
let it fall on the sorrel’s flanks. The steaming 
horses answered with a rush down the hill, 
whirled us past the white-railed church-yard 
and drew up at the door of the old parsonage, 
lying almost within it. As we stopped, the 
sleigh bells shook, out a merry marriage chime 
that called a gentleman into the porch. He 
was a tall, handsome old man, with a forest 
of gray beard framing a ruddy face, and a 
sparkle in his clear eye that showed him not 
all saint. 

“ You are prompt as welcome, my dear chil- 
dren,” he said as he lifted Miss Blythe from 


Victory ! 105 

the sleigh and bent down to kiss her forehead. 
“ -AH is ready, Tom. I got your letter and 
the license just in time, and your courier’s 
zeal was proven by the foam that covered his 
horse.” 

“ It was a tough ride over country from the 
Bull’s Eye,” Miss Bettie chirped out with per- 
fect composure, while the still silent Tom 
helped the blonde to alight, “ and you may 
be sure we managed it in a hurry, Mr. Lind- 
say. I had to make frightful love to the old 
clerk — almost kiss him — before I could get the 
paper.” 

And Miss Bettie actually laughed softly while 
the wicked black eyes rested for a single second 
upon my own. I was absolutely struck dumb — 
motionless — with one leg over the scraper and 
one to the knee in a snow drift. The coolness 
of that young woman paralyzed me. The old 
gentleman laughed. 

“You are a woman of business, Bet,” he 
said. 

Woman of business! Did ever bride before 
run away with lieutenant of Boomerangs and 


io 6 Cross Purposes. 

then boast her prowess to the parson? Woman 
of brass, he meant. But he only added : 

“ The paper is a little irregular, after all, but 
I’ll make it do. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do 
for the daughter of my dear old friend.” 

Phoebus and Cupid ! He’d even help her to 
an elopement with a penniless boy ! Some 
brilliant reflections upon the corruption of the 
Church popped into my mind, but before I 
could frame them into portable shape they 
were cut off by the clear, sharp voice of that 
inscrutable bride-elect : 

“And this, of course , is Miss Belton, and 
this our first and only groomsman.” So was I 
introduced to the Rev. Dr. Lindsay. 

I shook hands very mistily and uttered some- 
thing unintelligible. Then before the awkward 
boy from the rectory stables had persuaded him- 
self to take the horses’ heads in charge, the 
doctor’s wife appeared on the steps in the 
neatest of morning toilettes. She kissed Tom 
and the girls with the most motherly em- 
pressement. 

u I have often heard of you from Bettie,” she 


Victory l 107 

said pointedly to me, and then glanced at that 
wicked young person. 

Once more the dark eyes flashed into mine 
for a second, and they so magnetized me I 
could scarce resist knocking the head that con- 
tained them against that of the rector’s wife. 
By a huge effort, however, I mastered the im- 
pulse, and left that lady free to say : 

“ Do take a cup of coffee, my dears. It is 
hot and ready. You will wait breakfast till 
after the ceremony, but you really need some- 
thing hot after your long ride.” 

Bettie looked at Tom. Tom, who by this 
time was very white and immensely solemn, 
only shook his head shortly. Then he drew 
the arm of that blonde water-spout — her eyes 
were running like a mill-race again — tenderly 
within his own. As for me, I stood knee-deep 
in the snow where I had alighted. My head 
seemed whirling round, and the people near 
me looked dim and misty. Tom turned shortly 
to me. 

“You take Bet,” he said in a hoarse 
whisper. 


1 08 Cross Purposes. 

Before I could recover from the strangeness 
of the arrangement, and obey, that wonderful 
young person had slipped her arm quietly 
into mine and said, with not a tremor in her 
voice : 

“ Thanks, dear Mrs. Lindsay, but we prefer 
the marriage first, and then we’ll all feel more 
comfortable to enjoy your nice things.” 

Feel more comfortable ! Could she feel 
more comfortable ? I didn’t wonder any longer 
that Tom had yielded when “she planned the 
whole affair.” Such coolness would overcome 
any man. But I couldn’t but admire her pluck, 
though ! 

The rector tucked his wife under his arm 
and led the way over the crisp path. We fol- 
lowed into the side door of the church, where 
two candles blinked upon the reading-desk and 
threw the rest of the building into still more 
dismal darkness. 

Just before we reached the door, Miss Blythe 
pressed my arm half nervously, and looked into 
my face with more of hesitation than she had 
yet shown at anything. 


Victory l 109 

“ I ought to explain,” she said, softly. “ Tom 
told me how you — ” 

I looked at that girl. There was no need 
for speech — that look was enough ! With a 
sort of half sob, her face dropped in her hands 
in what I could only feel was becoming 
shame. 

In the aisle Tom stopped, turned a ghastly 
face to me, while his white lips moved in a 
soundless effort at speech. He extended some- 
thing in a hand that shook plainly. Miss Blythe 
held out hers — it was steady as that of a prac- 
ticed duelist — took the something, and pressed it 
into my fingers. 

“ The ring,” she whispered. 

I took it passively. By this time I was com- 
pletely conquered. A young person who could 
plan an elopement, arrange every detail herself, 
choose her avowed lover for sole witness, and 
finally wake the groom at midnight, had power 
to startle me no further. She might even 
have made the change for the parson’s fee and 
kissed the pew-opener without exciting further 
surprise in the heart that, spite of myself, 
10 


no Cross Purposes . 

would stick in my throat and threaten to 
choke me. 

As we approached the chancel, I let go the 
bride’s arm mechanically and ranged up at 
Tom’s right side. Forbearance was leaving me 
fast. My boasted strength had all gone long 
ago ; I was wandering in my mind and weak 
in my knees. I was dead beat. But for pure 
shame I should have rushed from the church 
and wallowed abjectly in the snow without. 
When we all dropped on our knees, I could not 
strangle down the sob that burst from my heart, 
and the bitterness of my spirit found vent in 
anything but the utterance of the prayer the 
time and place called for. How long we knelt 
I have no idea. It might have been seconds, 
it might have been hours. Somehow, I found 
myself again standing up, clutching the chancel- 
rail for support, while the tall form of the rec- 
tor seemed miles away, and his words came 
dulled to my ears through a boom in them like 
that of angry surf. 

I could think, hear, feel nothing. I had but one 
consciousness, that I was wretched — vjretcliedl 


Victory ! 


hi 


Toni’s tremulous responses fell meaningless 
upon my ear, and yet, through all my agony, I 
listened with strained intensity for the words in 
which she was to speak herself his. 

Those words never came — only a soft, low 
murmur, as of the spring breeze. Even in that 
supreme moment of agony, I felt a tender, 
yearning pride that all the woman in her was 
not dead- -that it had at last been touched, even 
in the depths, by the solemnity of the sacrifice 
at which she held a part. 

The doctor’s hands were laid upon the 
wedded paii. 

It was done ! 

I staggered alone into the glaring sunlight on 
the church-yard snow. 

***** 

As we dashed down the main street of Pike- 
ton, at ten a. m. that day, our sleigh bells 
screamed with a rollicking jollity that brought 
many a face to door and window. 

Mrs. Lindsay’s wedding breakfast had been 
of the very best, and the bridal party, plucking 
appetite out of the inevitable, enjoyed it hugely. 


I 12 


Cross Purposes. 


Even after the clear coffee and feathery waffles 
could tempt no longer, they had lingered to lis- 
ten to the rector’s genial flow of talk. 

Mayor Blythe was just mounting his sober 
old horse as we dashed into his avenue at a 
slashing trot. 

“ Hello !” he cried, arresting one foot half- 
way over the beast. “Back so soon? And 
you, too, Anna? Why, we will have our 
Christmas dinner here, after all, then !” 

“Oh, darling papa! You’ll forgive us? 
Now promise you will !” and Bettie bounded 
from my side and threw her arms round the 
chief magistrate of Piketon. 

“Forgive you, puss! why, of course I will. 
But for what?” 

“ Oh, papa, he’s just the dearest fellow in 
the world ! And he couldn’t help it. ’Twas 
all my fault, wasn’t it, now?” She turned to 
me. 

“Not for the life of him !” I cried, slapping 
Tom on the back with wild hilarity. “ He de- 
serves the very best wife in the land, Mr. Blythe, 
and I’m sure he’s found her !” Here I kissed 


Victory ! 113 

the bride’s hand with a fervor that smacked 
again in the frosty air. 

“ Wife ! what do you mean?” cried the 
mayor, descending rapidly from his saddle. 

“ Now, papa, don’t be impatient — ” 

“Impatient! the devil! You’ll drive me 
wild. Here” — this to me — “you seem to have 
your wits left : what does the girl mean ?” 

“ But you forgive us? You promised to for- 
give us all, that’s a darling old papa !” and 
throwing her arms round the bewildered mayor, 
she led him into the snug little parlor. Then 
she shut the door carefully after we had filed 
guiltily in. 

“ Now, you dear old papa, we all ran away, 
that is, Tom and I ran away — ” 

“ Ran away!” roared the mayor, very red in 
the face. 

“Yes, but it was my fault, wasn’t it, Tom? 
and oh, papa, I’m so glad we did, and we 
married — ” 

“ Married !” The old gentleman’s face was 
purple now. 

“Yes, papa. At Dr. Lindsay’s church, at 
10 * H 


1 14 Cross Purposes . 

six o’clock. Now don't be angry, you dear, 
dear papa ! And we married, that is, Tom 
married — Anna Belton !” 

“ Oh — oh !” whistled the mayor. “ So that's 
the secret, is it? So you ran away with the 
golden fleece, you little Jason in petticoats !” 
and the old gentleman laid his hand kindly 
upon the golden locks of the blushing Mrs. 
Tom. “ Well, I will promise not to be angry. 
Ah, Tom, boy, you are a lucky dog.” 

“But — my aunt?” Mrs. Tom blushed and 
glanced slyly at her husband. “ How can I 
tell her?" 

“ How she will rave ! Why, I had quite 
forgotten her,” cried Mr. Blythe, with a furious 
fit of laughter. “To sleep with one eye open 
for ten years, and lose her treasure after all ! 
Bad children ! bad children ! But I see I 
must be peace-maker ; so I’ll put off business 
to-day, and drive over to ‘ Shadynook ’ on that 
mission.” 

“ And, papa, you must make our peace with 
Aunt Belton, and you must bring her lpack to 
eat her Christmas dinner in forgiveness. Tell 


Victory ! 


JI 5 

her it is too late now, and she has nothing for it 
but forgiveness. And she can ride over, too, 
papa,” added Miss Bettie, saucily, “ for we left 
her horses and ran away with our own.” 

“ She shall come, puss, even if I have to 
elope with her myself. But you can’t tell what 
a shock you gave me, my baby, by your mys- 
tery, for you know, you rogue, I never mean to 
give you up !” 

“ Then, sir,” I said, quietly, “ after what she 
has told me this morning, we will have to come 
and live with you. For I never mean to give 
her up !” 

It was Bettie’s turn to blush now, down to 
the snowy ruffle against her delicate throat ; 
but she put her loyal hand in mine and mur- 
mured, very gently : 

“ He loves me so well , papa !” 




EPILOGUE. 


PAUSED. The liquid black eyes were 
raised quietly, and a rapid glance from 
mine flashed into them. They were 
subdued, brimming over now ; and even as I 
looked, the oval face, crowned with its wealth 
of glossy hair — not a white thread marking it for 
all those eleven years — went down into the lace 
handkerchief on Bettie’s lap. Something like a 
sob caused a shiver of the sloping shoulders. 

No one spoke. 

I glanced at the sofa. Mayor Blythe’s head 
rested composedly upon his broad chest ; the 
aged Cerberus of “ Shadynook ” leaned back in 
her corner, emitting nasal sounds that could not 
have been bettered by passage through the trum- 
pet now lying useless at her feet. Mrs. Captain 
116 





Thomas Jones, U. S. A., had crept up to the 
gallant and bearded son of Mars whose name 
she bore, and her little white hand now rested 
gently against his ruddy cheek. But no one 
spoke. 

I moved over to the table, and once more took 
a deep draught of recollection and egg-nogg, 
when suddenly little Blythe, raising his glorious 
eyes to those of the portly gentleman, said : 

“ Papa, does he mean mamma?” 


THE END. 





























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